


My only Crime

by pocket_pict



Category: CyberSix
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/M, Gen, Historical References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 11:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22849174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocket_pict/pseuds/pocket_pict
Summary: Cybersix often wished she had a mother. What if, in a roundabout way, she had? This is a story about things that happened a long time ago, in a dark time and a dark place. About how the life of one lonely woman led to the life of another.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 17





	1. Prologue

**On A Street, Facing North**

The dark-haired boy leaned back against the wall and sighed, hands nervously clenched in his coat pockets. He stared up at the grey autumn sky, then down the street, then back at the sky. Any minute now his best friend would come around the corner and see him. He was fourteen years old, and about to do the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life.

“Josef?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin as Maria finally appeared, pushing away from the wall and straightening up. She smiled brightly and quickened her pace to meet him where he stood.

“Why weren’t you in school today?” she asked. Her smile faded as she studied his face. “What’s wrong?”

He looked somewhere over her shoulder, then at the ground. Anywhere but her eyes. God, how was he going to go through with this?

“It’s…nothing.”

“Like hell it is! Josef, what’s going on? Whatever it is, you know you can tell me!”

It was true and he knew it. The two of them first met in Kindergarten and had been inseparable ever since. They were closer with each other than anyone else, and there were no secrets. Maria had even told him the story of how she thought she was dying when she got her first period, hiding in the bathroom for almost an hour before her mother found her. Josef wasn’t getting out of this without telling the truth.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to look at her. This was it.

“We’re leaving. We’re leaving tonight. My dad says we won’t be safe if we stay in Germany, and he says it’s his fault. He still hasn’t found a new job because no one wants to hire him.” Josef’s father had until recently been a museum curator and painter. His taste for the cutting-edge and abstract had led to the museum owners firing him, caving to pressure from the Reich Culture Chamber. This event had all but blacklisted him, and the family quickly began to feel not just the financial strain, but the fear that things were going to get worse before they got better.

Josef forced himself to continue. “He was going to leave on his own, but my mom found out and said we had to stay together as a family. So we’re all going to Canada. I’m not even supposed to tell anybody, but I snuck out of the house to come find you. I had to say goodbye.”

Maria was very quiet and motionless as he spoke, but her face was flushed, and her green eyes had filled with tears. She tried in vain to blink them back and they finally began to fall. Josef felt as if his heart was being squeezed in a vice. “I’m really sorry, Maria. I never wanted to hurt you…” he stopped speaking as he felt his throat begin to tighten.

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I’m not mad at you,” she said in a wavering voice. “I just…I’m going to miss you so much.”

Despite how hard it was to leave, Josef knew how much harder things were going to be for his friend once she was on her own. Poor Maria. Her dreams for the future were nothing like the dreams her parents had for her. She had always been a pretty girl, and at fourteen her childlike features were beginning to change, hinting at the beauty she would become. Her looks had long dictated the way she was treated. A commodity rather than a child. Josef had realized a long time ago that he was the only boy – and probably the only male - she trusted, because he had always treated her as his equal. Achieving her goals would only become harder in the coming years, and she would no longer have her friend with her for support.

“I’ll write to you,” he promised. “I’ll write to you as soon as I can. And when we have a place to live, I’ll send you my address.”

Maria managed a smile. “I promise I’ll write back. All the time.”

An idea suddenly occurred to Josef. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and produced a small object. He held it out to his friend. “Here. I want you to have this.”

Maria stared at it in surprise. It was a bronze coin – a 1923 2 Rentenpfennig piece. They had gone out of circulation in 1924 when the currency had changed from Rentenmarks to Reichsmarks. By some unknown mishap, the little coin had been slightly bent on one side.

“Your lucky pfennig? I can’t!”

“Take it,” the boy said, pressing it into her hand. “I want you to have it. Maybe…maybe you’ll need it.”

She closed her hand protectively around the coin and held it closely to her. “Thank you,” she said softly. “We’ll still be friends…forever, right?”

“Yeah.” The two fell silent for a moment, each looking into the other’s face for what they knew could be the last time. Josef felt a hot pressure suddenly building behind his eyes.

“I’d better go. My parents probably know I snuck out by now.” He turned quickly, before she could see his tears. “Don’t forget about me!” he called out as he ran off, trying desperately to sound calmer than he felt.

“I won’t forget!” Maria answered back. She held his coin even more tightly to her chest. “I’ll never forget you,” she whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

**One**

In hindsight, Maria Schweitzer couldn’t remember a time when she felt as if she truly fit in.

To begin with, she was the lone redhead in a family of blondes. It wasn’t a complete surprise; her maternal grandmother had shared her coloring in her younger years, and there was a second cousin or great uncle -she could never remember which – on her father’s side with red hair. But these facts did little to make her feel any less awkward as a child when someone would see her with her parents and brother and inevitably make a fuss about it.

Then there was the ongoing issue of school. It was not a question of performance; her grades were consistently among the best in her class. The issue was with her achievements themselves. Whereas Maria imagined herself one day graduating with honors and going on to university and a career, her parents imagined her marrying into the highest echelons of Berlin’s society and raising the family up along with her. The Schweitzers could hardly be called middle class, but their wealth had come to them rather recently, compared to the “old money” they looked up to and longed to be associated with. Maria could not care less about climbing the social ladder and the older she got, the more the tension grew.

She had been struggling with these issues for most of her childhood when a third, and much more troubling obstacle arose. A few months before her thirteenth birthday, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists came to power. Suddenly everything around her seemed to be changing rapidly. She didn’t give it a great deal of attention at first; she was too young to remember or fully understand the social or political climate of the post-war years or the Weimar Republic. She hadn’t experienced its hardships to the same extent as others. Her father had survived the Great War. Her family always had enough to get by. But eventually her privileges were no longer able to keep her insulated and she began to understand what was happening. She didn’t like it at all.

Hitler scared her. The passionate fury in his speeches had made her uncomfortable when she had first heard him on the radio. Discomfort had blossomed into actual fear the day she attended one of his rallies with her family. It felt surreal: the almost medieval pageantry, the raw emotion, the sheer noise itself. Being surrounded by the absolute hysteria of others made her heart race and her knees feel weak. And the things he was saying. The economy was one thing, but these ideas of “racial hygiene” and Aryan superiority were another. There was something so mean-spirited and ugly about it all. Maria didn’t understand why the Jews were being blamed for all of Germany’s problems. It was true that they were different; they had different ways of doing things, and some didn’t look exactly like everyone else – but couldn’t she say the same things about herself? Of course, she knew better than to ever voice her concerns. She understood the kind of trouble she would find herself in.

The day Maria truly began to hate the Nazi Party was the day Josef was taken away from her. She had arrived home to a house devoid of other family members – as usual – and gone straight up to her bedroom to cry her eyes out. The housekeeper Janina was soon at her door, alerted by the footsteps thundering up the stairs.

Maria let her in and immediately wrapped her arms around the woman, pouring her heart out. Janina was the one person in the world besides Josef whom she really trusted. She had worked for the Schweitzers for almost a decade, and in that time the two of them had established a strong bond, though they both tried to downplay it around the rest of the family. They just wouldn’t understand.

“Oh _laleczka_ , I’m so sorry,” Janina murmured, stroking the sobbing girl’s hair. “I know how hard this must be for you. You let it all out and I’ll just sit here as long as you want.”

While Janina was comforting and sensitive to Maria’s broken heart, the family proper was not so supportive. After several days had passed and the girl was still not herself, her brother Rudi decided he was tired of watching their parents try to coax her out of her sadness and took things into his own hands. After all, he was sixteen and knew everything.

“Why are you so miserable anyway?” he sneered from across the dinner table.

Maria glared at him. “You know why.”

“Everybody’s tired of hearing about it. It was weird for you to be friends with a boy anyway. Just get over it.”

“Rudi, that’s enough,” Herr Schweitzer warned.

“Aren’t you tired of it? Because I sure am. And anyway, that kid’s dad was a degenerate. We don’t need traitors like them in Germany!”

“Shut up!” yelled Maria, jumping to her feet and slamming her hands on the table. “You don’t understand! You don’t understand anything, you asshole!”

“ _Maria!_ ” Her mother was shocked at her language.

“That’s enough, both of you!” shouted her father. “Maria, go to your room. Rudi, I already told you to stop.”

Rudi smirked as his sister ran out of the room. “Now are you going to sign her up for the BDM?”

Unfortunately, that was exactly what the Schweitzers were going to do. It was not too long after her outburst at the table that Maria found herself being marched into the local chapter of the _Bund Deutscher Mädel_ , the German Girls’ League, filling out the entry forms while her brother looked on smugly. The BDM was the female branch of the Hitler Youth movement, an organization Rudi had joined the year before and immediately taken to like a fish to water. There was a great deal of pressure on all children to join, at school as well as from peers who were already members. Maria had so far managed to avoid it, but it seemed as though her luck had run out once her parents realized how useful her membership could be to her and to them. It was meant to mold her into a proper German girl, who would dedicate herself to the Nazi ideals and service to her country and prepare for life as a wife and mother.

Maria had begged her parents not to make her join. She knew how much of her time would be consumed by meetings, rallies and endless fundraising. She had often seen her classmates who were members come into school exhausted or sometimes not at all, to the detriment of their schoolwork. She had no intention of giving up her academic goals for something she had no belief in. Some of the older girls had even come back pregnant from the extended stays at coed camps or hostels, which horrified her. She was not about to let a boy try anything with her, especially not one of the loud, brutish boys Rudi spent his time with in the HJ’s. Her dreams had no room for that kind of nonsense.

But her parents stood their ground, and Maria was soon wearing the navy-blue skirt, white blouse and black scarf of the BDM. She had worn her long hair in braids for years, but now that she was expected to by an outside authority, it suddenly seemed more like a burden than a hairstyle. She was trapped for the next four years - four years! It might as well have been a hundred! – so she decided she may as well put up her psychological walls and push on as she had before. Most of the time, she was successful. Most of the time.

One morning after another long night’s meeting, Maria walked into her classroom to discover that someone had scrawled a message on the chalkboard: “Jews perish, Germany awake!” She felt her stomach turn itself into a knot. It was easy to identity a handful of her more outspoken classmates and fellow BDM members as the possible culprits; girls who were rabidly devoted to the Nazi Party and the kind of people Maria was always the most on guard against. She could see several of them giggling with each other as she took her seat, carefully keeping an expression of apathy on her face.

Her mask nearly slipped as she caught sight of the two Jewish girls in her class. They undoubtedly suspected the same girls that Maria had, but knew there was little they could do or say to defend themselves and simply sat there miserably. What went through their minds when things like this happened? Where they afraid of what might come next? Did they get angry? Did they want to say something, or maybe just turn invisible? Maria pretended to focus on her desk before either of them noticed she was watching.

When the homeroom teacher appeared, she initially seemed not to take notice of the message on the board. She took attendance as if nothing were amiss. Maria thought she might say something when she began announcements and moved to the chalkboard to write some reminders, but she only paused briefly as if considering the message before erasing most of it to make room for her own. This was disappointing but hardly surprising. No teacher would dare confront her students about a message that may as well have come straight from the Fuhrer himself.

At the end of the day, Maria was busy shuffling her books into careful order in her bag as the other students rushed out of the classroom. When she stood up, she suddenly realized that she was the last girl left in the room – the last, that is, except for her two tormented classmates. Evidently, they were waiting until the other girls were long gone before making an exit, hoping that they could avoid any more ugliness and make their escape home together.

The girls looked at each other like three deer in the headlights of a car. Maria felt the same dread in the pit of her stomach she had that morning. The other girls knew she was in the BDM; it was common knowledge who was and who wasn’t, and very few girls were on the outside at this point.

 _It wasn’t me,_ Maria wanted to say. _I don’t hate you. I don’t like this any more than you do._ She wanted to have the courage to stand up for the two of them, to at the very least offer to walk with them until they were well past the grounds of the school. But she was just too afraid. She felt her face growing hot with shame and turned tail out of the room, feeling like the biggest coward in the world.

Maria arrived home half an hour later wallowing in a cloud of guilt, kicking off her shoes defeatedly inside the doorway. She saw Janina’s slight form appear out of the corner of her eye, coming to greet her. But Maria couldn’t bear to even make eye contact with her favorite person today and slunk up the stairs in shame, leaving the woman wondering what had happened.

Because Maria knew that Janina was Jewish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found a lot of useful information on the League of German Girls on the page of the same name at spartacus-educational.com. It has lots of first-hand accounts as well.


	3. Chapter 3

**Two**

Mid-April 1938

“Maria! Look, look! A bunny! See? There’s a bunny!”

“Maria, I finded a pine cone. I’m gonna throw it like…this!”

“Look at me! Are you looking? Maria, watch this!”

Maria laughed as the small army of kindergartners streamed down the shady path and swept her along with them. It was spring and the morning was still chilly, but it wasn’t enough to spoil the beauty of the forest awakening.

The kindergarten was on a field trip to the _Grosser Tiergarten_ , one of the largest urban gardens in Germany. Full of forests, streams, and lakes, it was an ideal place for the children to see and learn about nature without having to leave Berlin. Three, four and five-year-olds chattered excitedly, carefully herded by their teachers and helper.

Maria was the helper. She had been displeased to discover that, following her time in the BDM, she would be expected to complete a year of service, her _Landfrauenjahr_ , before she could enter any advanced studies. She was utterly uninterested in spending her year on a farm, but an opportunity to work at a kindergarten didn’t seem too terrible. It was only a year, and she was still only eighteen. She could continue to live at home, and spend her fleeting free time studying for university exams. Through hard work and plain stubbornness, she had managed to keep her grades up and finished school with results that she was proud of.

Spending most of her time with small children wasn’t the worst thing she could think of. They were still so innocent and curious. They weren’t expecting anything of her but attention and answers to questions about the world around them. Children didn’t judge her for having a mind of her own, or not having a boyfriend. All that mattered to them was that she was kind and made them feel safe.

The troupe stopped in a clearing by a glassy pond, dotted with the tiny beginnings of lily pads. Maria leaned against an oak tree and watched the children run and jump in the grass. She idly played with Josef’s lucky coin in her coat pocket. After all these years, she still kept it with her everywhere she went.

She looked over at three children carefully negotiating the rules of a game they had invented. It reminded her of an idea she had been turning over recently – what to study when she finally got into university.

Her work at the kindergarten had led her to wondering. How did these tiny humans change, in only a few years time, from helpless babies to children who performed all sorts of physical abilities and spoke a language? How did they learn to interact with other people and solve problems? What was going on in the brain as it grew? There must be at least some understanding in science about how it all came together. Maybe there were certain methods that helped children learn better than others, or that helped those who were falling behind to catch up, so that they could all have a fair start in their first years of school.

This seemed like the perfect area of study. Not only did it fascinate Maria, but the fact that it involved children might just convince those who needed convincing that university was the right path for her. Anything even remotely connected to raising children was bound to be seen as “women’s work,” and as long as it got her what she wanted – why not?

The sound of a voice drew Maria back into the present. A heavyset woman with a kind smile approached and stood next to her under the tree.

“You look lost in your thoughts again, Maria,” she said. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about school again, _Erzieherin_ Junge,” replied Maria. Kindergarten teachers were given the title of Educator.

The older woman grinned. “That’s what I thought you’d say. You’re not the kind of girl who spends much time worrying about men, are you?”

“No, I suppose not.” Most of them weren’t really worth thinking about.

“Well, that’s not so bad,” Erzieherin Junge laughed. “Sometimes too much of that can get a girl into trouble. Still,” she continued, admiring Maria’s thick crown braid, “some day you might come across a man you’ll want to think about.”

“Maybe.” It seemed difficult to imagine.

“Don’t you think you’d like to start a family someday?”

“Well…I might. Someday,” she added hastily. Maria really didn’t know. She liked children; she could possibly see herself becoming a mother. Maybe after she had established a career. But she’d have to get married first, and that seemed so unlikely as to be laughable. She would have no trouble finding a man who was interested in her on the surface. But what kind of man would be interested in who she really was? Did he even exist?

Late May 1938

The canopy of tree branches barely rustled in the early morning air as Maria passed underneath them on her way to the bus stop. She liked to arrive a little ahead of the first bus to take advantage of the peaceful moments before the morning rush began. It was a good opportunity to study.

She approached the sheltered bench and noticed a pamphlet-sized piece of paper laying across its wooden slats. Curious, she picked it up and turned it over, seeing what looked like a bulletin printed on the other side. Her pulse quickened as she read the message:

GERMAN CITIZEN!

The wheels of the Nazi machine are oiled with the blood of the innocent!

Will your conscience let you sit idly by while they take your freedom

and the freedom of your fellow Germans?

Understand what it is they really are, and what they are doing to this country!

_And thou shalt act as if_

_On thee and on thy deed_

_Depended the fate of all Germany,_

_And thou alone must answer for it._

-Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Maria quickly looked around, scanning the sidewalk for anyone who might see her. There was no one. Was the person who put this here somewhere nearby, watching her?

She was about to put it back where she found it, then changed her mind and quickly stuffed it into the inner pocket of her jacket. She was the first person at the bus stop. If she left the paper on the bench, the next person to come along could very well suspect that she had put it there. She couldn’t risk that kind of trouble.

The message stayed in the back of Maria’s mind all day. Her conscience _did_ bother her. She had never forgotten how ashamed she had been of her cowardice when the Jewish girls in her class had been targeted by the other BDM members. The two of them had eventually stopped coming to school at all, and then she had felt even worse. She knew she couldn’t do anything about it all on her own. She had hoped for a long time that there were others like her, and now she seemed to have concrete proof of it.

The next morning, to her amazement, there was another copy of the paper on the bench. The mysterious person had returned! Maybe he would come this way again the next day. It gave Maria an idea.

She took the paper and tore off the bottom quarter before hiding the rest in her pocket. There was a pencil in her book-bag, and she fished it out. Checking periodically for anyone coming up the street, she put the ripped paper on the bench seat and wrote a message of her own:

_How can I join you?_

She rolled it up and carefully pushed it in between the wooden slats. It was barely noticeable, but if someone were to come by to see if the paper was gone again, then he might just notice it. She couldn’t wait to see if it worked.

Nothing happened on the third day. If the person had read her message, he had taken care to put the paper back right where he found it. On the fourth day, Maria was initially crushed when she thought she saw her message still hidden in the bench. On closer inspection, however, she realized that it was further along the gap than where she had left it. Was it an answer? She poked the paper out from its hiding place. It wasn’t her message at all! It was a different piece of paper. She unrolled it excitedly.

_Tonight at 8:00_

_take a left off this street onto Kieferstrasse_

_go to the back of the 5th house on the right-hand side_

_tell the person inside the basement door that you’re looking for Hans_

_come alone_

Maria couldn’t believe this was happening. This was it! She was consumed with excitement for the rest of the day but tried her best to conceal it. This situation required all the patience and discretion she had.

After dinner, Maria went to her room on the pretext of collecting her book-bag for studying. Then she took a deep breath and steeled herself.

She rushed down the stairs, pulling on her shoes and coat as if in a great hurry.

“Goingtothelibrarybacklater!” she shouted as she rushed out the door, nearly slamming it behind her. She ran down the front walk and kept running until she was well out of sight of the big, white house.

Maria followed the instructions in the message, crossing the street when she got to the bus stop and walking a short distance to Kieferstrasse, then down its right-hand sidewalk. As she counted the houses, she began to have second thoughts. What if she was walking into a trap? It wouldn’t be out of the question. Someone could have put those papers there to catch dissenters and report them to the Gestapo. Maybe it was someone looking for a victim to rob…or worse. She might be in over her head. But she wanted so badly for this to be real. Badly enough that she was willing to ignore her doubts and keep going. At the fifth house, she looked around, then picked her way across the front lawn and down around the back.

At one time, before cars filled the streets of Berlin, the basement of the house had included a small stable for one or two horses. Its barn door remained, red paint long since faded and mostly peeled away. This must be the door Maria was meant to go to. She couldn’t see another.

She held up her fist, paused, then knocked.

She jumped when a female voice immediately answered from the small gap between the door and the stony foundation wall. “What do you want?”

“I’m…I’m looking for Hans,” said Maria.

There was a pause, then a squeak and clatter of what sounded like an old latch opening. The door opened just enough to let her in, but beyond it was pitch black. “Hurry up and come in,” said the voice from behind the door.

Maria was getting second thoughts again. Why was it so dark? Who and what could be waiting in there for her?

“Come on!”

_Well, I’m really in it now,_ thought Maria, and disappeared through the doorway into the darkness.

The door was closed and locked behind her. “Follow me,” instructed the voice, and they walked a few feet forward before Maria heard the sound of a heavy blanket or curtain being pushed aside. “We’re coming in,” the voice said to someone. Maria jumped as a hand groped for her arm and led her past the curtain. She was starting to get frightened.

The curtain rustled again. “Okay, we’re in.”

Maria was nearly blinded as a light suddenly turned on. Shielding her eyes, she discovered that she was standing in what seemed to be a storage room, windowless and separated from the rest of the basement by a thick blackout curtain covering the doorway. A single naked light bulb illuminated a group of maybe a dozen people of varying ages, all turned and looking at her. A woman in her early twenties stood next to her, evidently the owner of the voice who had led her in. At the furthest end of the room was a young man with sharp features. He looked annoyed.

“Oh shit, Blondi, she’s just a kid!” he complained to the woman.

“Come on Dachs, don’t be like that. She was brave enough to reach out to us and we could always use more help,” answered Blondi.

“Yeah right, how’s a kid going to help?”

“I’m not a kid,” said Maria.

Dachs gave her a skeptical look. “Oh really.”

She stood her ground. “I’m not. I’m eighteen.”

“Wow, eighteen. You must know how the world works.”

“Joan of Arc was only nineteen, and she led the whole French army.”

He smirked. “Yeah, and look where she ended up.” Maria scowled at him.

“Oh, just let her help,” said another man. There was a murmur of agreement.

“Fine, she can stay for now. But first, tell us why you wanted to contact us.”

“Because I hate the Nazis,” stated Maria. She had never said the words out loud before. It was liberating. “I hate what they’re doing. To the Jews, and to everyone. They cost me my best friend when I was 14, and it’s gotten worse and worse every year. I want to do something – anything – to fight them.”

Dachs listened to her with his arms crossed, nodding. “Well, okay then. Look, we’re just a small group. Mostly we print and put out papers like the ones Blondi left at your bus stop. We’ve helped get a few people out of the country, but we don’t have a lot of resources. This isn’t going to be like some glamorous spy movie. Are you sure you still want in?”

“Yes.”

“What do you think you can do to help?”

Maria had been waiting for this moment. Placing her book-bag on the ground, she opened it and pulled out her wallet. She removed a thick stack of bills, got to her feet and walked up to Dachs.

“My parents are rich,” she said, handing him the cash. “I have a lot of money I can give you; they won’t notice it missing if it comes from my own allowance and savings account. And I basically get paid pocket money for my _Landfrauenjahr_ so it won’t make a difference in my spending that anyone will see.”

Dachs counted the bills incredulously. “This is unbelievable!” he exclaimed. He eyed Maria suspiciously. “Are you sure you can afford to give this kind of money away?”

‘I’m sure,” she said, smiling. “Use it for supplies, fake passports, I don’t care. Whatever you need. And I can give you more later.”

There was a feeling of excitement in the room. Now they could really start accomplishing something.

“I bet you’re glad she showed up now,” remarked Blondi, and the others laughed.

Dachs grinned and shook his head. “All right, you got me. I guess you’re in, kid.” His face became serious. “But don’t forget; this is dangerous stuff we’re doing. If any of us get caught, the best we can hope for is prison or hard labor. You’re really playing with fire here.”

Maria nodded. “I know that.”

“So, what do we call you?”

“Not your real name,” interjected Blondi before Maria could answer. “It’s safer that way.”

She thought for a moment. “Well, if I’m playing with fire, then call me Paulinchen,” she said, referencing the character in _Struwwelpeter_ who played with matches when her mother was out. Everyone had encountered that particular book in their childhood.

Dachs found this a clever response. “Welcome aboard, Paulinchen. But you remember what happened to her at the end of the story, don’t you?”

She met his gaze bravely. “I remember.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Three**

In a world which offered her so few freedoms, Maria was always glad to take advantage of any she could get. Today provided another opportunity and she took it. It was April 12, her birthday, and she was nineteen.

She felt thrilled to finally enter the salon with her mother. For so long, she had waited to be treated like an adult but felt infantilized by the Nazi regime’s strict rules for girls and society’s insistence on following them. She was finally coming to the end of her service year and wanted to look like the grown woman she now was.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked the hairdresser one last time, admiring Maria’s waist-length copper mane.

She looked at her mother. “I’m sure.” The hairdresser produced her scissors and got to work.

Several hours and much cutting and styling later, Maria looked into the mirror and saw an adult staring back at her. Her hair now fell just past her shoulders, with a deep side part and smooth, loose pin curls.

“I feel like a movie star,” she marveled, turning her head and smiling at the way the style accentuated her high cheekbones and classically European features.

“I must say, you made an excellent choice,” the hairdresser said, as much to Maria as to her mother, who agreed.

As they left the salon, Maria’s good mood was momentarily interrupted by a painful thought, which she quickly suppressed before it could show on her face. _I wish Janina were here to see me._

Five months earlier, the rampant antisemitism built up by the Nazis had come to a head during the terrifying _Kristallnacht_. During the night between November 9 and 10, Jewish homes, schools and business were ransacked and destroyed in massive riots. Not even the synagogues were spared in the frenzied pogrom, and there were reports of beatings and outright murder. Maria had not seen it in person from her house cocooned in its leafy residential neighborhood. What she had heard on the radio and from others after the fact was more than enough to frighten her. She had begged Janina to stay the night once she learned what was happening, not wanting her to venture outside. The two of them hid away in her bedroom, listening to the radio until they couldn’t stand it anymore.

After that night, Maria tried several times to convince Janina to leave the country, offering her money to help. She couldn’t let her friend know outright about her activities with the resistance group, but she tried to imply that she was willing to “find help” to get her out of Germany. Each time, Janina refused to take her money, insisting that she couldn’t put Maria in danger. Neither woman knew exactly how much danger the other was in, nor could they imagine what was yet to come.

One day, Maria came home from the kindergarten to find a woman she didn’t recognize tidying in the living room. A very obviously Aryan woman. When she introduced herself, Maria asked her about Janina, but the woman knew nothing. She went upstairs to her room to find a letter on her bed.

_Dear Maria,_

_I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye in person, I don’t have much time but I had to write this. I’m being sent back to Poland. I promise I’ll write to you when I can. When I have an address I’ll send it to you. Please be very careful what you write because I know someone will read it before it gets to me. I’ll be okay. Be strong laleczka._

_All my love,_

_Janina_

For the second time, someone Maria loved and trusted the most had been taken from her. She had broken down as she read the letter, and then a second time when she relayed the news to the others at the next resistance meeting. If only she could have done more. If only she had the power to protect the people she loved.

 _I’ll try to be strong for you, Janina. You’d be strong for me_.

“Well,” Maria heard her mother say, snapping her back to attention. They were in the taxi on the way back home. “I’m sure everyone will be surprised to see your new look when they come on Saturday.”

“Saturday?”

“Yes, the dinner party we’re hosting, don’t you remember?” Maria had completely forgotten. Wonderful. Another interminable social function she would have to survive.

“Oh. That’s right.”

The familiar look on Luise Schweitzer’s face told her daughter she was up to something. “I think you might just enjoy yourself. I’ve invited someone who’d very much like to meet you.”

Oh lord. Not this song and dance again.

“He’s a doctor. He’s just moved here from Bavaria to work at the university.”

“I see.”

“Yes. His name is Dr. von Reichter.”

It was late Saturday afternoon. Maria sat at her vanity, putting the finishing touches on for the party. She didn’t normally wear much makeup in her day to day life; it was frowned on by the Nazis as being unnatural and something only used by the “man-hating suffragettes” of other countries, not proper Aryan women. However, many women in her social strata felt this was simply propaganda aimed at those in the working classes and continued to use it. On occasions such as tonight, Maria took advantage of the opportunity. She liked the way mascara accentuated her fair eyelashes, and the deep red lipstick made her feel glamorous.

She stood up and assessed herself in the new dress she had chosen; a form fitted black evening gown with a sheer net overlay that spilled down to the floor. Her small waist was accented with a wide green sash. The low-cut back and thin shoulder straps were covered with a short-sleeved bolero that matched the netting on the skirt. This was no little girl’s outfit. She felt very grown up and smiled despite herself. If she had to play these little social games, at least she could feel like an adult while she did it.

Maria descended the stairs and walked into the front room. The guests would start arriving any time now. Rudi was sitting on the sofa reading a magazine, for once wearing a dinner jacket and dress pants instead of his SS uniform. He had easily been accepted after his time in the Hitler Youth and was quickly moving up the ranks. It was unnerving to come home and find him visiting in full regalia, strutting around with those goddamned leather boots all over the hardwood floors.

He looked up from his magazine and gave his little sister a critical look with his cold blue eyes.

“Mutti’s really looking forward to this party,” he said.

“I know that,” replied Maria, sitting on the opposite side of the room.

“So, try not to embarrass us.” He leaned to one side, ducking the pillow flying in his direction. “Like that.”

“You really are an asshole.”

The doorbell rang and their mother appeared from somewhere at the other end of the house, pattering through the front hall to answer the door. Maria and Rudi instinctively dropped their feud and, in the way they had been trained since childhood, prepared to greet and socialize.

Soon the front of the house was full of guests, laughing and talking. Maria began to lose of track of them all. Once the doorbell seemed to have stopped ringing, she took a glass of wine from the table and sat in the corner of the sofa. She was already beginning to feel bored.

“So, you must be Maria.”

She looked up, startled, in the direction from which the voice had come. Standing in front of her was a black-haired man, perhaps in his late twenties, whose appearance Maria could only describe as aristocratic. He was of average height, with a thin frame under the fashionable shoulder pads of his suit jacket. His dark eyes studied her intently from behind a pair of glasses perched on a rather long nose. He could hardly be called handsome, but he projected an aura of confidence and intelligence that made Maria take notice.

The man seemed to sense her curiosity and extended his hand. Maria rose and shook it. “Perhaps I should introduce myself. Dr. Maximilien von Reichter.”

“Good evening, Herr Doktor. You were right, I’m Maria Schweitzer. Won’t you sit down?” This sort of interaction was nothing new to her. It became very predictable.

He took a seat next to her. “Thank you. Please, call me Max,” he said.

“My mother mentioned you would be here.”

“Oh, she insisted that I come. She’s told me all about you in her letters.”

“Letters?” Oh God, what had her mother been up to? She must have heard about him at one of her endless Kaffeeklatsch sessions and decided to play matchmaker.

“Yes; she sent me your picture as well,” the doctor reached into his jacket and produced a black and white photograph of Maria from the previous Christmas. “You’ve changed your hairstyle. It’s very pretty.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mutti,” she put a hand to her forehead. She could feel her face going red. “I’m so sorry she’s been bothering you like this.” _And embarrassing me, giving out my picture and offering me up like a prize, she thought._

“On the contrary, I’ve been looking forward to meeting someone as bright and ambitious as you. What are you hoping to study at university?”

Maria was astonished. Had she heard him correctly? This was something completely new.

Max was amused. “I take it most men don’t discuss that sort of thing with you,” he smiled.

“No…no, they don’t,” stammered Maria. Without thinking, she added, “and if they do ask, I don’t think they really care.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – “

“It’s perfectly all right, don’t apologize,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “I’d like to learn what you think about many more things.”

Maria, by now completely bewildered, was about to respond when dinner was announced. She and Max rose, and he wordlessly offered her his arm to escort her to the dining room. Shyly she took it, hoping no one would be able to tell how nervous she was.

The conversation at dinner was the same as usual. Politics, the military, other people’s lives…Maria followed them easily and tried to immerse herself in what was going on so that she could push her nervousness deep down inside, where no one would detect it. It was difficult. Max was sitting on the opposite side of the table and kept looking at her. She found herself doing the same.

Frau Schweitzer had been watching the two of them intently and finally was unable to stand it anymore. She took advantage of a brief lapse in the conversation and turned the table’s attention to the doctor sitting across from her daughter.

“Herr Doktor, I understand you have a PhD. in biochemistry as well as one in medicine,” she said, smiling brightly.

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And you’re only 28. No wonder the university is so anxious for you to join them. You must be a genius.”

“Mutti,” Maria scolded her. _Subtle as a freight train_.

“Well, I suppose.”

“I know I’ll certainly be interested in watching the career of a young man such as yourself take off. Won’t you, Maria?”

All eyes were on Maria. She felt the blood rush to her face and silently wished she could sink into the floor. How embarrassing!

“Uh, yes – I – yes, I would.” She didn’t know where to look and ended up staring right at Max, which made it even worse.

After what seemed like several years, the evening finally came to an end. The Schweitzers thanked their guests and watched the cars pulling out into the dark street. Maria was standing to the side of the staircase when she felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see that the hand belonged to Max, and he was pulling her aside.

“It’s been wonderful to meet you,” he began. “you’re a very special young woman.”

Maria smiled nervously. “Thank you.”

“I hope you won’t think me too forward,” he continued, “but I think I may be able to help you. I know very few women are accepted into university, and the competition for placement is going to be high. I don’t mean to dismiss your abilities, but I’d like to think I could have some influence with the higher-ups when it comes time for them to select next semester’s students.”

“Really?” Her heart leapt. He could get her in! This was her chance to finally have things work in her favor!

But a thought suddenly occurred to her. What was he going to want in return?

“In the meantime, why don’t you let me take you on a tour of the place one day soon? I’d like it very much if you’d come by to see me.”

Ah. There it was. He wanted to show off and impress her. Then again, it would be nice to have a chance to finally see the inside of the place. She might as well play along for now.

“Well, I usually finish up at the kindergarten around two o’clock. If it’s not too late in the day for you, I suppose I could take a taxi from there…”

“How about Monday?”

Maria was caught a little off guard. “Oh! Well…I…I don’t see why not.” _He certainly doesn’t like to waste any time,_ she thought.

“Excellent. Why don’t you meet me at Robert-Koch-Platz and I’ll take you from there.” He put on his hat, barely breaking eye contact. “Until then,” he finished. And with a polite bow to his hosts, the doctor was on his way into the night.

She watched him leave and soon became aware that she was being studied intently by three pairs of eyes. She turned and faced them with a carefully aloof expression.

“I think I’ll go get ready for bed now.” She kissed each parent on the cheek. “Good night.”

Her father had an amused look on his face, shared by his wife and son. “What did you think of that Dr. von Reichter?” he called after her.

Maria laughed as she climbed the staircase. “I honestly don’t know,” she replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a pretty interesting video on YouTube of a talk by Mark Hull at the Dole Institute of Politics called "The German Homefront Experience." I learned a lot of new things that I had never heard or read anything about before, and it answered a lot of my questions. 
> 
> Oddly enough, another hugely useful source of information was the book "A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin" by Scott Andrew Selby. You get a really vivid and detailed picture of the city during that time. It's also pretty weird to read about serial murder going on at the same time as all the state-sanctioned violence and murder.


	5. Chapter 5

**Four**

_Dear Janina,_

_Thank you again for sending me your address! I had to write to you right away. I miss you and keep wondering how you are and what you’re doing. I’m glad you’ve found a job too._

_Guess what? I’ve been accepted to university for the fall semester! I’ll be taking courses in psychology, as you might have guessed. I’m still interested in studying early childhood development._

_I have to confess that I didn’t do it all on my own. I suspect one of the reasons I got accepted is because of someone I met who works at Friedrich Wilhelm who has some influence there. So, I have to make sure I work extra hard to prove that he didn’t do it in vain and that I really belong there._

_That’s right, I said I met someone. He was at one of Mutti’s many dinner parties (you know all about those)! I know what you’re thinking, but don’t get too ahead of yourself, ha ha! I’ve seen him a few times since then but he’s not my boyfriend or anything like that. I still don’t know what to think myself! All I’ll tell you for now is that he’s a scientist and he’s very, very smart._

_Please write back soon and let me know if there’s anything I can send you. I know you said you’re okay but I still worry._

_All my love,_

_Maria_

She had to admit, despite herself, that she hadn’t felt this good in a long time. And that she wasn’t being completely honest with Janina.

Her trip out to the university had gone much better than she expected. She had found Max waiting for her at the statue of Robert Koch in the small, tree-shaded park. As it turned out, Friedrich Wilhelm was much bigger than Maria had realized; composed of two campuses full of buildings. The former palace she had associated with the university, Campus Mitte, was in fact the home of the Departments of Law, Business, Economics and the humanities. She had come to Campus Nord, home of the life science departments. At the core of this was the park-like area at the medical center, close to where she had arrived.

They spent the afternoon touring the red brick buildings and the “Trichinae Temple,” the building formerly housing the Royal Veterinary College’s anatomy theater. This was now the home of the Departments of Psychology and Biology, among others. Max showed Maria his office and research area, although she didn’t enter as there was work in progress. She was, however, introduced to his main assistant, a biology student named Krumens. Maria sensed the man was a bit taken aback to see her there; whether it was simply due to the rarity of seeing a woman on campus or something else, she wasn’t quite sure.

By early evening, Maria’s mind was going in a thousand directions at once. She couldn’t wait to take the entrance exam and hopefully start school in autumn. She wondered what it would be like to finally be a student. She wondered if she would have her own office somewhere, someday. She also wondered if her initial judgement of Max had been a little harsh.

This last thought preoccupied her more as the evening progressed and they went to have dinner together. She had been skeptical at first about his claims of wanting to know what she was interested in studying, but he made good on them and for the first time, Maria was able to discuss the concepts that fascinated her with someone who could understand why they captured her attention. By the end of the evening, she felt as if a new world could be opening up to her.

She threw herself into her studies completely after that, determined to catch up to the where the other students would be if she were admitted. Education for children had suffered under the Nazi regime, and it was even poorer for girls than for boys. Maria would be starting with a real disadvantage if she didn’t catch herself up before classes started, and she didn’t want to encounter any surprises during the entrance exam. She was lucky to have Max’s help when she needed it, but it sometimes frustrated her further to ask. Between his education and intelligence, the man’s mind was operating on a level so far about the average person’s that she couldn’t help but feel a little stupid in comparison. Maria was used to being treated as too smart for her own good; to no longer be the smartest person in the room was a bit of a blow to her ego that she hadn’t expected.

She decided eventually just to take it in stride. When the day finally came to write the exam, she came out of it feeling fairly confident. Still, when the letter arrived a few weeks later telling her she was accepted, she had to take a moment to reassure herself she wasn’t dreaming. Then she let out a yell.

“I did it!” she exclaimed, racing into the front room and further startling her mother. “I got into Friedrich Wilhelm!”

Luise smiled. “Now aren’t you glad that I introduced you to Dr. von Reichter?”

Maria chose to ignore her mother’s less-than-subtle suggestion that her own merits had no part in her admission. Still excited, she ran off to her room to write to Janina and tell her the good news.

After a few tries throughout the day, she was able to call Max when he was in his office and he invited her out to dinner to celebrate. He arrived at her door with a dozen white roses and she threw her arms around him, surprising them both. She had never done something like that before.

Maria’s spirits remained high all evening, and she ended up drinking a bit more wine than she had intended. By the time they arrived back at her house that night, she was starting to feel a little drowsy.

Max turned off the motor of the big black Mercedes and they sat together as an awkward silence descended on them. It was Maria who finally broke it.

“I have to thank you again, Max. For everything you’ve done.”

He put his hand on hers and her pulse quickened. “It wasn’t just me,” he said. “You did most of it yourself.”

“But you helped me. Just like you said you would. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

He moved in closer. Maria was nervous. She had never been in a situation like this. What now? His hand was on her cheek.

She looked into his eyes. They were so dark and intense, even behind his glasses. Before she realized what she was doing, she moved towards him. This felt right. She was glad that she had met him after all. Maria closed her eyes as they embraced each other and she experienced her first kiss.

Change didn’t confine itself to just one area of her life that summer. As her time with the kindergarten would be ending with the school year, Maria realized that she would have to alter the way she communicated with the resistance group. She would no longer be coming to the bus stop every morning, where messages had been exchanged several times, each time in a different predetermined hiding spot. A new solution had to be found, but it wasn’t going to be as easy as the last.

A meeting was held in late June to discuss the gathering threat of war. The rearmament of Germany had been building for years; pacts had been made with Italy and Japan. Hitler now had Austria and Czechoslovakia, and it was obvious he wanted Poland as well. There seemed to be a lot of appeasement going on from other countries, but the older members of the resistance group were certain this wasn’t going to last much longer. Maria listened, but still hoped somehow that they were wrong.

She arrived at the house on Kieferstrasse, going not to the basement door as she had the first time, but the front. As she had learned after that day, everyone arrived this way. It was a method of hiding in plain sight; obviously people were meeting at the house on occasion, but it couldn’t be anything suspicious if they weren’t trying to conceal it. Her case had been different, she was told, because she had been brought into the group as a total stranger.

The woman known as Blondi was the curious type. She left pamphlets in all sorts of places, but if she happened to see a place or person who caught her eye, she sometimes came back later to see what had happened. Usually nothing did. In the case of Maria, Blondi had been acting a bit dangerously by leaving a pamphlet so close to the house, which she lived in with her aunt and uncle. She had seen Maria a few times on the way to her early morning shifts at work, noticing how she was always sitting alone, immersed in a book and taking notes. A girl defying society’s expectation, even in such a small way, piqued her curiosity and she couldn’t help herself. One day, when she had gotten a rare day off work, she had gotten up early and left the pamphlet on the bench.

“So, when I looked around to see if anyone was watching me…” Maria had started.

“…Someone really was!” finished Blondi, laughing.

Later that night, Blondi had left the second copy, and again the next night, she had gone to the bus stop and found the note hidden in the bench. She called an emergency meeting as quickly as she could, excited at the prospect of another ally who from the looks of her, came from money. That was always in short supply. She had felt vindicated when her new recruit turned out to have a heart as big as her bank account.

Once everyone arrived for the meeting, they gathered in the sitting room instead of the storeroom in the basement as they had for Maria. As expected, the main topic of conversation was the likelihood of war, which made what they were doing even more dangerous. They were already committing acts considered to be treachery against the state; if war was declared, they would also be committing acts that undermined the war effort. There was no coming back if anyone was caught at that point. Still, no one seemed willing to back out. Whether it was a feeling of being resigned to one’s fate, or a belief that somehow they would all have luck on their sides, the group as a whole decided to keep doing what they felt was the only moral thing. What else could they do?

As the meeting wound down, the floor was given to anyone who had other business to share. Maria spoke up.

“I’m going to be going to university in the fall…” she began slowly.

There were a number of congratulations and happy responses from the other members, but Maria noticed sadness on a few of the faces as well, as if they saw futility in her plans. As the youngest member of the group, she was considered the “baby,” and she often sensed feelings of protectiveness toward her from the others. Most of them had experienced at least some degree of freedom in their lives before the Nazis took over, while she had simply been born too late.

“That place is going to be a hotbed of Nazis,” warned Dachs. “You’re going to have to be even more careful than usual. Remember – well, you might be too young to remember – but they burned thousands of books from its library in ’33. They sacked a lot of professors too. They’ll be watching you closely, especially since you’re a girl.”

“I know, but I want to keep helping. I need a new place to contact the group between meetings.”

“How about a church?” one woman suggested after a moment. Clergy members, both Catholic and Protestant, had been vocal critics of the Nazis through the years.

“St. Hedwig’s isn’t too far from the university,” said a man. “Which campus will you be on?”

“Campus Nord.”

“That’s perfect; it’s very close, less than a ten-minute drive.”

“Do you think it’s okay for me to do that? I’m not Catholic,” said Maria.

The other two laughed. “Don’t worry,” said the woman, “Bishop von Preysing has been making Hitler furious for years. If he ever found out what you were doing, he’d probably encourage you to keep doing it!”

In the end, it was decided that Maria would leave her first message as a “practice run” in a week’s time; underneath the last pew of the right row, in the far left-hand corner next to the aisle, held in place with a piece of Tesa adhesive tape. But how easy would it be to find something that small without a lot of obvious, blind fumbling?

“I can fix that!” Maria reached into her pocket and produced Josef’s lucky pfennig. “I’ll stick it on the message, and you’ll feel the shape of it. And this way you’ll know for sure it’s from me.”

“You carry around an old bent coin? Are you superstitious or something?” teased Dachs.

“It’s the most important thing I own,” answered Maria cryptically.

The most important thing she owned sat in a dish on her nightstand as Maria nervously rearranged her bedroom again and again.

She tried to keep herself focused on the things that were going well. Her coin had traveled back and forth with several messages and deposits of money in various places throughout St. Hedwig’s without incident all summer. She had been seeing Max on the occasions he wasn’t too busy with work, and things were going very nicely. She wondered if she might be falling in love but refused to share this fact with her mother. School would be starting at the beginning of October and she could hardly wait.

But her mind kept coming back to last Friday. She had come downstairs for breakfast and discovered that early in the morning, Germany had begun an invasion of Poland. Supposedly it was in self-defense, but that was obviously untrue; it had been clear for months that Hitler wanted to take Poland and the Free City of Danzig. The announcement that blackout regulations would now be in effect made things no less suspicious.

The Blackout Regulation had in fact been issued the previous May, so the news couldn’t be said to be a complete surprise. People had been required to prepare themselves ahead of time, without being told when it would all actually begin. There had even been a practice blackout in July, complete with air raid sirens, planes dropping fake bombs and fake antiaircraft fire. Maria had told herself it was completely ridiculous, but the truth was that it had left her very unnerved. She didn’t want to see what a real air raid was like.

The Schweitzer house was ready before nightfall; every window covered with blackout curtains and all outdoor lights shut off. The headlights on her father’s car had been fitted with hoods which only let out a small trace of light. Maria was already on edge, so when the air raid sirens went off later that night, she almost jumped out of her skin. (Oddly enough, there was no practice announced for that night, nor were there any bomber planes coming.) She didn’t end up getting much sleep after that.

Saturday had crawled by without further news, and finally Sunday was sluggishly passing as well. Maria was trying to keep busy as best she could. She was moving the items on her vanity yet again when her father appeared at her door and told her to come downstairs.

She froze. “Why?”

“Just come down with me, please.” He sounded as if he was trying to cover a deeper emotion with a stern tone. Maria didn’t like it at all. She said nothing more and followed him.

They walked into the sitting room where her mother was listening to _Deutschlandsender_ , the national radio station.

Maria sat next to her father. “What’s going on?” she asked nervously.

Her father turned to face her. “We’re at war. Britain declared war on Germany this morning, and France will probably follow them.”

Maria was speechless. She could see fear in her father’s eyes, something she could not remember ever seeing before, and it terrified her.

“The Fuhrer’s going to be coming on in a minute,” her mother said. She looked afraid as well. They had already endured one world war in their lifetimes, and now it looked as if there would be a second.

After a moment, the airwaves were given over to the sound of the voice that Maria hated the most. He went on and on, painting Britain as a warmongering villain bent on destroying the peace and prosperity of Germany. But Maria could barely hear him above the sound of her own racing thoughts. What would happen now? Her father was probably just old enough to avoid the draft for now, but what if the age requirement changed? Rudi was probably in Poland at the moment. What would happen to him? It was true that they had never gotten along very well, but he was still her brother. She didn’t want him to die.

And what if Max was drafted? She couldn’t bear the thought of yet another person she cared about being taken away. They couldn’t. His research was too important. He was smart; he could convince them it was important for the war somehow. If he died on some battlefield and they were separated forever, she might die too.

She felt like screaming. She felt like throwing up. She heard the sound of her pulse getting louder in her ears as the room started to fade away in a blur. Suddenly her father’s arms were around her and he was calling her back into the real world.

“Maria? Maria, are you all right?”

She had been breathing so hard and fast that she nearly fainted. Her father had caught her before she fell over and both parents were now looking at her with frightened looks on their faces. She felt the tears coming too quickly to stop.

“Papa!” she cried, and held on to him as if she would never let go.


	6. Chapter 6

**Five**

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you smile like that,” said Max as they left the pet shop. They had been out for a walk before their dinner reservation when Maria had seen a sign on the shop’s door advertising dachshund puppies for sale. Her family had owned one when she was small, and they were her favorite breed. She hadn’t had the time for a dog when she was a teenager, but she had always wanted to own another one. She had to go inside, just to see.

“I’m sorry,” sighed Maria. “I know I haven’t been very good company lately. I just can’t stop worrying.”

“Don’t apologize. Everyone’s worried about the war. But things will turn out all right. You’ll see.” He had taken a cigarette out of his coat pocket while he spoke, and he stopped for a moment to light it.

“I hope so,” Maria said glumly, pulling her collar up higher against the chilly air. They started walking again and Max put his arm around her.

“Maybe you’ll show me that smile again at Christmas?”

She rolled her eyes at him and smirked. “All right, all right.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll smile at Christmastime. You win.”

“I always win.”

Maria made good on her promise to smile on Christmas Eve. She had invited Max to come spend it with her family. She couldn’t stand the thought of him being alone on Christmas and she knew her mother would never refuse. Luise was well aware by now how successful her little matchmaking attempt had been, despite her daughter’s vagueness whenever she inquired about it.

When Max arrived at the house, it was already dark outside, and Maria couldn’t see much of anything due to the blackout as she let him in the house. He was carrying something under one arm that made a very strange noise. After she shut the door and turned the light back on, she saw that it was a rather nondescript box tied with string.

Max gestured to it. “I have to insist that you open this first,” he said.

They joined the rest of the family in the sitting room, made extra welcoming now by the addition of the Christmas tree and carols playing on the radio. The box continued to make suspicious noises as they sat on the sofa.

“I’m supposed to open this right now,” Maria announced as Max handed over the box. There were several holes in the lid. She had barely gotten the string untied when the lid was pushed up and away by the tiny velvet head of a dachshund puppy, its whole body wiggling with excitement at the prospect of escaping the box.

Maria squealed with joy and lifted the puppy up. “I don’t believe it! Oh, she’s perfect!” She cradled the dog in her arms. “Thank you, Max!”

“You see? There’s your smile again. I told you I always win.”

She met his gaze. “I love you,” she said quietly. She touched his face and brought it close to hers, kissing him as her family looked on in surprise.

Her parents and brother smiled at each other triumphantly. It looked as if Maria might become a bride after all. They would go on to be proven correct a week later when, on New Year’s Eve, Max proposed, and Maria accepted. There might be a war on, but some things were still going very well indeed.

In the six months between the proposal and the wedding, Germany continued its rampage across Europe. Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were all invaded and captured. In June, France was finally occupied as well, and Italy joined the war. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was on a rampage of its own.

Everything was happening so quickly. It was true that Germany seemed unstoppable for the moment, but this was little comfort to Maria. She wasn’t happy about it like everyone else seemed to be. She worried all the time, especially about Janina, though she never spoke about it to anyone outside the resistance group. Some of them had heard stories about the Jewish population in Poland and other countries being forced into ghettos and trapped behind walls and barbed wire, away from the rest of the world. They told Maria the “Litzmannstadt” Janina was writing from was formerly called Lodz and was home to one of these ghettos. The few times she had heard from her friend had been through postcards, with only a paragraph or so written in block letters, in a stilted manner that didn’t seem like Janina at all. Maria supposed she was working under a word limit as well as the knowledge that whatever she wrote could be censored, or simply not sent at all. Luckily, she was able to send Janina the things she had requested, and they seemed to arrive, but she couldn’t do much more. Something very bad was going on, but she would not comprehend just how bad until much later.

In the meantime, she tried to take solace in Max, her schoolwork and the puppy she named Lili. She was the only woman in any of her classes, which had been more than a little awkward at first. She was very amused when one of her classmates saw her with Max one day, and evidently soon discovered who he was and his standing at the university. By the end of the week, she was no longer being bothered by any unwanted attention. It wasn’t the way she’d like to earn respect, but she was willing to take what she could get.

Time passed and the day of the wedding arrived. Maria prepared at home in her childhood bedroom, where her belongings sat packed and ready to move into Max’s apartment in the Mitte district, close to the university. The room was lively as school friends, aunts and cousins came and went, helping to put all the last-minute details together.

Maria sat at her vanity and assessed herself as her mother fussed with her veil and headband, decorated with small white fabric roses. Her dress had a ruched, off-shoulder cut, made a little more modest with a lacy netted layer that reached up to her neck. She had chosen it because the netting reminded her of the dress she had worn the first time she met Max. She wondered if he would notice.

As she turned her head to answer someone’s question, she noticed the light glint off of her prized lucky pfennig, sitting on the vanity waiting to go with her. She picked it up and held it between her fingers for a moment before securing it in her handbag. She felt a sudden pang of sadness, remembering Josef. The letters had stopped coming a long time ago, as war had loomed closer and closer on the horizon. She supposed his parents might have discouraged him from writing to her. They must have been concerned about how it would look for a family of German immigrants to be receiving regular mail with stamps covered in swastikas. She couldn’t truly blame them, but it had hurt all the same. She still missed him and wondered what he was doing. Maybe he was getting married as well, to someone she might never meet.

 _If you hadn’t left,_ she wondered, _would I be marrying you today, Josef?_

There was a knock at the door and a few people squealed in excitement. Maria’s father was standing on the other side. It was time to leave for the church. Maria tried to swallow the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat and got to her feet. She made her way carefully down the stairs and out to the car as various hands kept her veil safe and up off the ground.

She stayed mostly quiet on the ride to Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, still a little sad, then a bit nervous about everything to come that day. They arrived and stepped inside, the sound of organ music floating through the warm air.

Maria’s mother kissed her and her father and made her way to her seat, leaving them alone as they stood in silence for a few moments. Konrad Schweitzer then turned to his daughter, looking very proud.

“Ready?”

She looked up at the green eyes she had inherited and smiled. “Ready.”

For as long as he lived, Krumens, the best man, would never forget the expression on his mentor’s face as he watched his bride walk up the aisle. It was a look of rare vulnerability, as if for once he was not completely in control of his emotions. Not like Herr Doktor at all. But it passed across his face for only a moment before vanishing, and Krumens did not see it again.

The ceremony proceeded rather well to Maria’s relief, despite some periodic sniffling from her mother. The reception was held that evening and went on late into the night with toasts, music, food and dancing. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. It was about midnight when the party came to an end. Maria and Max thanked everyone for coming and eventually made their way to the car and headed home. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t possible have much of a honeymoon, but neither of them minded waiting a little. They just wanted to be together.

Once inside the apartment door, Maria and Max stood silently holding each other for a moment.

“Are you happy?” Max asked quietly after awhile.

His wife smiled at him. “Yes,” she replied, and hugged him more tightly.

At some time during the night, the solution came to him. He had been lying there going over the project for several hours, chain-smoking and trying to determine where precisely the problem was coming from. Then an idea hit him. It had to be the answer. He was sure of it. Slowly and carefully, he eased himself out from under the head of soft red hair, which had been lying on his chest. Good. She was still asleep. He put on his glasses and housecoat and crept out of the room, closing the door gently behind him.

So it happened that Maria von Reichter unknowingly spent her first night as a married woman alone, while her husband revised a series of chemical formulas at his desk until morning.

As the summer went on and Maria finished her first year of university, she tried to keep herself busy as she always did. She hadn’t expected to get married so soon, but she loved Max and would never have turned him down. And at least she was still able to continue with school, although she imagined that she was ruffling a few feathers by doing so. Being at Friedrich Wilhelm at least meant that the two of them had more chances of seeing each other. Max wasn’t drafted after all; his work was deemed far too important, although she never found out exactly what that work was as he was sworn to secrecy. This didn’t bother her as much as she expected. After all, she had secret business too.

What did bother her was the night of August 25 when, for the first time, Berlin was bombed. There was little actual damage and no one was killed (except for the elephant in the zoo), but the shock was damage enough for most people. Berlin had never been bombed during the Great War; many people couldn’t believe it was happening now. Then there was another air raid which killed eight people, and the Luftwaffe began the Blitz campaign on the cities of Britain.

It was safety and security that led to the von Reichters having a serious discussion in the fall as Maria started her second year of school. As much as they both wanted her to continue her studies, they realized that they needed to be practical about the expectations being put on them and the uncertainty of wartime. All the proof of Aryan ancestry and bureaucracy they had signed their names to in order to get married was there for a reason: the Third Reich wanted children to insure its future, and Max and Maria were now expected to do their part.

Maria knew this was something that wasn’t wise to fight. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children, she just wished she could have a little more freedom to decide when. But she knew the two of them had been pushing their luck already, so with some reluctance, she decided that this would be her last year of school for now, while they tried to start a family. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She was still only 20. She could always go back to school in a few years, once their child was old enough to start Kindergarten. Maybe by then the war would be over as well.

There was no birth control available in Germany under the Nazis, and abortion was illegal for any reason outside of eugenic purposes. So far, the best Maria could do was to carefully track her cycle and avoid sex on her most fertile days. She had been successful up to this point, and she realized that the calendar she had been keeping could be useful to achieve the opposite as well.

But it didn’t seem to be working. At first, Maria was a little surprised that nothing had happened, but Max remained optimistic about their chances, so she felt reassured. They kept trying throughout the fall and winter, but still there was no baby. Now they were starting to worry. Eventually the topic was too uncomfortable to even bring up.

It was April and spring was starting to make itself known when Maria noticed she was feeling very tired all the time. Her breasts felt sore, and she began to get suspicious. When her period was late, she was initially excited, but felt she needed to be patient and kept her thoughts to herself. She didn’t want to get Max’s hopes up and then discover it was a false alarm. Then she started having bouts of nausea, and as another expected period came and went, she decided it was time to go to the doctor. The results of the test would not be known for another two weeks, which she spent waiting on pins and needles. If it came back positive, it was at least nice that she would be able to finish out the school year before she started to show. Women were expected not to be seen out in public after that point.

Near the end of May, Max came home one evening to find Maria in a mysteriously good mood. He was settling in on the love-seat with the newspaper when she walked up behind him, leaned down and put her arms around his shoulders.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked the newspaper in a mildly annoyed tone.

She kissed his neck. “The doctor called back today,” she said softly into his ear.

“What are you talking about – wait a minute,” he put down the paper and turned around to look at her as he realized what she was saying. “Are you serious?”

She grinned at him. “Two months.”

He flew off the love-seat and wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t believe it! This is wonderful!”

“It’s perfect. We’re going to have our very own Christmas baby,” said Maria.


	7. Chapter 7

**Six**

The blackout curtains were rolled up in the front room and the Sunday morning sun flooded in. A welcome summer breeze drifted in through the kitchen window as Maria finished preparing breakfast. For the last two weeks, she had tried to save a good part of their meat rations for the weekend, when the two of them were likely to be home together. She had felt so sick lately, she didn’t think there was much point in saving things she couldn’t bring herself to eat anyway.

She brought Max his plate first, then came back with her own. He looked at her skeptically.

“Is that all you’re going to eat?” he asked. She had given him the ham and all but one of the eggs, while her plate consisted of a piece of toast and the single egg she left for herself.

“It’s all I can manage right now,” she said. She knew what he was about to say and cut him off before he could say it. “I’ll see how I feel later.” She received a raised eyebrow in return as he went back to reading. _If I can keep this all down, that is,_ she thought. She wasn’t sure about the egg.

Lili approached the table hopefully and stood in front of Maria, staring. When that didn’t work, she whined softly and sat up on her hind legs, pawing the air. It was her favorite maneuver to get what she wanted.

“That’s very cute, Lili, but it’s not going to work. Go lie down,” Maria told her. The dog chose to ignore her and whined again. Max made an irritated noise in his throat. “Lili. Lie down. On your bed. Go on!”

Eventually, Lili realized she wasn’t going to get her way and wandered off to sulk. Max made another noise and Maria realized it had nothing to do with the dog. He was glaring at something in the newspaper as if it had personally insulted him.

“Max, for God’s sake. What are you looking at?”

He tossed the paper down in disgust, pointing to an article. “This. This is what I’m looking at.” He went back to his breakfast, shaking his head. “Unbelievable.”

Maria reached over and picked the paper up. The article in question was titled Explosive Statements by Werner Schneider and included a photo of a man in an SS uniform whose appearance reminded Maria a little of a rat. The quoted statement gave her pause.

“I will be able to help the cause with robotic armies made with human parts,” she read aloud. A chill went down her spine. “Is…is that even possible?”

“I highly doubt it. But the idea of applying robotics to combat is something the higher-ups in the _Wehrmacht_ would be very interested in.” Maria was a bit surprised at how concerned he sounded about the whole thing. But he was probably just as repulsed by the idea as she was.

She skimmed the article. A brain trapped inside a mechanical body? It sounded like something out of a nightmare. She remembered how disturbed she had been as a child by the robot in the movie Metropolis. It hadn’t helped that the character whose likeness was transferred into it happened to share her name.

“I think it’s horrific,” she concluded.

“It’s a ridiculous idea. He won’t get anywhere with it.” Max seemed to be talking to himself more than Maria, and she wondered what why he was so bothered. “I’m sure he won’t.”

The young woman in blue made her way down the tree-shaded path toward a small clearing. Her real name was Gretchen, but she was known to a select few only as Blondi. She quickly spotted her fellow resistance member, the pretty redhead known as Paulinchen, on a nearby bench watching a little dachshund busy itself with the scent trails in the grass. She caught sight of Blondi and smiled.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” she said.

“Of course, dear,” replied Blondi. “This is a bit of a change, isn’t it?” The dog came up to inspect her and she held out her hand. “Who’s this?”

“That’s Lili. I didn’t think it was fair to keep her cooped up inside while I came out here.”

“That’s understandable. So, why did you want to see me alone?” Paulinchen’s latest message had been to request a private meeting between the two of them in the _Tiergarten_. It was unexpected, but Blondi had never had any reason to distrust the other woman. She had complete faith in her, in fact.

The younger woman sighed. There was something different about her today, although Blondi couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to stay away from the group from a while. It’s not that I want out,” she added hastily. “It’s just for a while, until it’s safe again.”

Blondi was concerned. “Are you in danger?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. I just won’t be able to get away from home for the next little while, especially after the baby is born.”

“The baby?” It dawned on her then that Paulinchen had been positioning herself on the bench very carefully. She put a hand on her stomach and Blondi could now see that her normally small midsection was just beginning to change shape.

“Oh! Well, congratulations! You two must be so excited!” She had noticed the gold ring change from the left hand to the right some time in June of the previous year, although Paulinchen had been utterly silent about it. Blondi had called Dachs aside on the pretense of getting something from the kitchen when the ring first made its appearance.

“Don’t you dare say anything about it to her,” she had warned him.

“What? What did you think I was going to say to her, Gretchen?” he asked defensively.

“Ssh! She knows what you think about everyone at the university and that’s probably where she met him. Don’t tease her about it.” She felt a little sad. “I just hope…I just hope he’s not like that.”

Dachs put his hand on her shoulder. “She’s too smart for that, Blondi. She wouldn’t end up with a rank-and-file Nazi.”

Gretchen put her hand on his. “I hope not. She seems so lonely. I don’t want to see her make a mistake and end up trapped.”

 _And what happened to your school dreams?_ She wondered now, as she tried to read the smile on Paulinchen’s face.

“Thanks, we’re both very happy about it. I’m due in December. Oh, by the way…” she took an envelope out of her handbag. “Here. This is my last donation until I come back.”

“Thank you so much!” Blondi took it from her gratefully. She felt a sudden surge of affection and sadness well up inside her. She wrapped her arms around the other woman and hugged her protectively. Paulinchen hugged back.

“What was that for?” she asked, surprised.

“For everything you’ve done for us.”

Paulinchen gave her a crooked smile. “All I’ve done is throw money at the problem.”

“But you didn’t have to. You wanted to do something, and you sought us out to do it. We’ve been able to help so many people because of you.”

“Well…in that case, maybe I won’t feel so badly about having to stop for now.”

Blondi had an idea. “Look, how would you feel about meeting up one more time, later this week? I really think Dachs would want to say goodbye in person. I know he was hard on you at first, but the truth is, he has a lot of respect for you. I know he’ll miss you while you’re gone.”

The other woman thought for a moment. “All right, let’s do it.”

Maria walked carefully across the Opernplatz toward St. Hedwig’s. The summer sun hadn’t completely set, but it was close, and with the blackout that meant it was getting very dark very quickly. Max would be working late again, and so tonight was a perfect night for the last meeting with Dachs and Blondi.

As she approached the cathedral, Maria tried as best she could to stay alert for any sign of policemen. At least they could be identified. The men she most needed to look out for were the Gestapo, and they were in regular street clothes. They wore uniforms in other occupied countries, and in the district offices, but if Maria were to run into one of them, she would only know about it once he showed her his warrant disc. She hoped to avoid an encounter like that indefinitely.

At the base of the cathedral steps stood a couple having a quiet conversation. Maria couldn’t make out their faces very well in the growing darkness, but she recognized the voices as that of her friends. All any of them could really see of each other were the phosphorescent pins they each wore, like all Berliners, on their jackets. They didn’t do much other than help pedestrians avoid bumping into each other, but it was better than nothing.

“Hello, you two,” she said quietly.

“I’m so glad you could make it,” replied Blondi, hugging Maria. She seemed so affectionate lately.

“Let’s go inside,” suggested Dachs. “Then we can at least see each other.”

The three of them climbed the stairs and made their way into the sanctuary of the cathedral, which was empty save for a handful of people in the middle of personal prayer. A few electric lights were glowing, aided slightly by the flicker of candles. Despite the high dome of the ceiling, it felt like a reassuringly small space, compared to the big dark world outside. The friends stood just inside the vestibule, a small distance behind the aisles for privacy’s sake.

Dachs smiled at Maria. “Blondi told me you’re going to be leaving us for a while. We’re all going to miss you.”

“It’s just for a while, I promise.”

“Oh no, I understand, and I’m really happy for you! I guess it’s just…well, everyone’s gotten pretty fond of you.”

Blondi nodded. “We have.”

Maria felt terribly sad. She didn’t want to have to keep herself away from these people she had come to trust. They had given her courage and a rare sense of belonging, and she felt as if she were throwing herself back out alone, into the darkness again.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” she said, in a voice that sounded more strained than she expected. She put a hand on her mouth and tried to stay composed.

“Oh honey, it’s going to be all right.” Blondi put an arm around her and Maria felt her breath catch a little despite herself. “You’ve got your baby to look forward to. Just think about that for now. And when you come back, you can bring us some pictures of him or her.”

“Just don’t name it after me, whatever you do,” joked Dachs, trying to lighten the mood. “No kid wants to be named after a badger!”

Maria gave him a little smile. “Okay, I won’t.”

“Maybe we should let her go on her way before it gets too late,” said Blondi. They headed back towards the doors. “Are you going to be okay going back alone?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve done it lots of times. Sometimes there are more people out at this hour than you’d think.”

They stood once more at the bottom of the steps, prolonging the inevitable. Maria finally spoke.

“Well, I’ll…see you early next year, then. I guess what I’ll do is leave a message here as usual once I’m ready. In the same place as the first one.”

“Last pew of the right row, far left corner,” recalled Blondi. “Got it. But not until you feel ready. Someone will come by and keep checking until we find it.” They shared a final hug. “Goodbye, Paulinchen. Good luck.”

“Thank you.” Maria turned to Dachs. The man who had once looked at her with scorn now seemed sorry to see her go. “Goodbye, Dachs.”

“Goodbye, kid. Be safe out there. We’ll be waiting for you.” They shook hands. He held on to her hand just a little longer than necessary, giving it a little squeeze. Maria’s heart was aching.

The three of them were straining to see each other in the dark when a flashlight suddenly lit them up from the waist down. Maria and her friends nearly jumped out of their skins. They turned to see the outline of a policeman’s legs coming quickly towards them How much of their conversation had he heard?

“What’s going on? What are you three doing out here so late?” the policeman asked them with suspicion. He was careful to keep his flashlight pointed at a downward angle and not at a higher point where the light could potentially be seen from a bomber plane. This practice had been impressed firmly on everyone and doing otherwise usually resulted in being loudly told off by an air raid warden or the neighborhood _blockleiter_.

Maria could feel herself almost physically pushing her panic down. She had an idea and she moved on it quickly.

“Oh! You scared me to death, Mein Herr!” she said in a lighthearted voice, forcing a laugh.

“What are you doing out here, Fraulein?” the policeman repeated, this time in a much softer tone. He must have realized how young her voice sounded. There was also the chance he had caught a faint glimpse of her face. Maria was aware of how her good looks could be turned to her advantage and intended to exploit the situation for all it was worth.

“Well, I was trying to make my way home from visiting my boyfriend – he’s at the university library right now, you see,” she pointed across the Opernplatz, “and of course it’s just so dark, I got myself turned around until I met this nice couple here who were helping me find my way again, and – “

“Alright, alright then,” the officer interrupted her rambling speech. “Sorry to bother you folks. Just keeping an eye on things.” Blondi and Dachs readily made a few noises of polite understanding. The policeman turned back to Maria. “Do you need me to help you get back to where you’re going, young lady?” Yes, he had definitely seen her, she was sure now.

“Oh yes, thank you so much. Goodbye you two,” she looked back in the direction of her friends, imagining the expressions on their faces. “And thank you. For everything.”

She took the officer’s arm and let him escort her down the plaza toward Unter den Linden, the historic boulevard running from the site of the royal palace to the Brandenburg Gate. She pretended to be very engaged in their small talk along the way. When they reached the street, she assured him that she could make the rest of the journey on her own.

“Thank you again, Mein Herr. It was so kind of you to help me,” she said as emphatically as she could.

“You’re very welcome, Fraulein. You take care now.”

“Oh, I will, I promise.” Maria started down the sidewalk alone.

There was as least one good thing about the blackout, she had to admit. Once she could finally hold her fear and sadness in no longer, it was too dark for anyone to see the tears streaming down her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you goes to r/MagentaHamster on reddit for their fantastic translations of the Cybersix comics! For this chapter and a later one, I heavily relied on and used direct quotes from the translation of Issue #7, "The Hero And The Victim."


	8. Chapter 8

**Seven**

Maria had been thinking a lot about genetics recently.

She expected much of what she had learned in school and the BDM was nonsense; the oversimplified ideas about heredity and Aryan superiority seemed too biased to be real science. After meeting Max, she realized he could answer the questions she had, and she had a lot of them. He was happy enough to provide her with answers, and the true picture of genetics began to come together for her.

It was still a young branch of science. Studies had revealed what genes did, but not how they did it. Still, Maria was fascinated to learn about how locations of genes on a chromosome could be mapped, how they determined certain developmental reactions, and the possibility of one day manipulating these genes to improve human ability.

“Imagine if human beings could be made stronger and healthier, before they ever left the womb,” Max had said to her. “We could prevent harmful abnormalities before they started. We could even make everyone as beautiful as you.” She had laughed and called him a shameless flatterer at that point.

But it was all very interesting to think about. Some people were born with terrible, painful conditions. If these could be identified and treated during fetal development, no one would ever have to suffer from them again. It seemed to Maria that medical science could and should work in this direction, following the directive of the Hippocratic oath to do no harm.

It was genes Maria was thinking about one morning in mid August as she returned to bed only a few hours after waking up. She was feeling extremely tired and not very well at all. She was nearly five months’ pregnant and had expected this unpleasant phase to be well over by now. It had been tapering off, but recently she had started feeling bouts of nausea again. This morning had also introduced some cramping that had her a little concerned. She tried to think about something else as she lay back down for a nap, bringing Lili with her to cuddle. The little dog circled around beside her and wiggled into a comfortable position up against her owner’s side, letting out a little sigh.

Maria pet Lili and tried to relax. She had begun to imagine lately what her child might look like, and whether it was a boy or a girl. She didn’t have a preference either way, but for whatever reason, she kept coming back to the idea that it was a girl. From what she knew about dominant and recessive traits, it seemed that the baby was much more likely to have her father’s coloring and not hers. She pictured a little girl with a head of jet-black hair and deep brown eyes.

 _How cute,_ thought Maria. _If she has my fair skin, she’ll look just like Snow White!_ Their own little Snow White princess. That would fit so well with her winter birthday. She began to feel herself calming down, and soon drifted off to sleep, thinking about the possibilities the future might bring.

She awoke suddenly about an hour later in terrible pain. The cramping had gotten much worse, as if her insides were being twisted into knots. Something was horribly wrong. She felt a chill and looked down to realize that she was lying in a patch of blood and…fluid, soaking into the blankets. Oh God. Lili jumped up and whined as Maria crawled across the bed to Max’s nightstand and picked up the phone. She tried to keep her voice as level as she could as she dialed the operator and called for an ambulance. She felt herself starting to hyperventilate. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t time yet.

She realized that she would have to unlock the door when the ambulance arrived. She gathered the top blanket up underneath her and forced herself to get up, feeling lightheaded from the pain and from breathing so hard. Her head swam as she made herself move toward the front door, unlocking it, then falling to her knees. It seemed to take forever, but she finally heard footsteps and voices coming down the hallway. Lili barked frantically as a paramedic knocked on the door, confused and upset at her owner’s panic. The door opened and it was all Maria could do not to start screaming at the men to do something, anything, to fix what was happening as they lifted her onto a stretcher. The last thing she remembered was Lili barking behind the apartment door and pleading with the paramedics to call Max at work to come help her.

Maria opened her eyes slowly, blinking as the world came back into focus. She was confused at first, but soon realized that she was in a hospital bed, curtains pulled close on either side and an iv in her arm. She felt the presence of someone sitting next to her and turned her head. It was Max. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, but she knew she didn’t like it.

He attempted a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” she answered groggily. She started to remember what had happened that morning and felt her heart begin to race. “What’s going on?”

“You’re at the hospital. They had to sedate you on the way here, you were panicking.”

She was afraid to ask, but she had to know. “Is the baby all right? Tell me she’s all right.”

Max didn’t answer her right away.

“Max, tell me she’s all right.”

He put his hand on hers. “I’m sorry, _Liebchen_.”

“Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God, no!” She clamped her hands over her mouth, feeling as if she would start screaming. She started to cry. “What happened?”

“We don’t know. Sometimes…sometimes these things just…happen.”

“I don’t understand! Max, you’re a doctor, they’ll tell you what really happened!”

“Liebchen, they just don’t know. I can’t tell you anything more than that.”

Maria looked him in the eyes as best she could, her vision blurry with tears. “Was it a boy or a girl? Did they at least tell you that?” She knew she had been far enough along for it to be determined.

“I don’t think that’s – “

“Max, please! Just tell me what it was!”

He took a deep breath and looked at the floor. “It…it was a little girl.”

The next few weeks were terrible. Maria was given tranquilizers that made her feel as if she were underwater most of the time, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to come to the surface. Calling her father and telling him the awful news almost killed her. She couldn’t bring herself to tell her mother in person. She had been so excited to help Maria order maternity clothes and shop for the baby’s things. For once, they had seemed to really be connecting, and now all that was over. Everything was packed away out of sight. She couldn’t bear the thought of looking at the reminders of what could have been.

What had to be the worst part of it all, she thought, were all the well-meaning but devastating interactions she had with other people. The common belief at the time was that miscarriage was due to the baby being malformed or otherwise sickly, and that it was more merciful to lose the pregnancy than carry it to term. The idea that the loss she had just suffered was “for the best” or “not meant to be” seemed so insensitive and dismissive of what she was going through, as if she hadn’t already been building hopes and dreams for the child she would never meet. Her doctor assured her that she could start trying to get pregnant again in a few months, but she didn’t want another baby, not just yet. She wanted _this_ baby back. She wanted her Snow White.

It was during this time of grief that there was a knock on the door one rainy afternoon. Maria groaned. She really didn’t feel like entertaining any visitors. The only person she wanted around was Max, but he was always so busy at work and just couldn’t take much time off, no matter how much she begged him. Maybe he didn’t want to be at home anyway.

She made herself open the door. It was a middle-aged man she had never seen before, dressed in a business suit.

“Are you Maria von Reichter?” he asked her.

“Yes…may I help you?” He took something out of his coat pocket, connected to a long gold chain. A warrant disc. She felt her blood run cold.

“Frau von Reichter, I’m Detective Ehrenfeld with the _Kriminalpolizei_. I’d like to ask you a few questions. May I come in?”

She led him inside to the front room and tried to mask her fear. He was with the police, not the Gestapo, but he could still belong to the SS all the same. Had one of the resistance members been caught? Had she been reported by the policeman in the Opernplatz back in July?

Detective Ehrenfeld took a seat on the sofa and removed his hat, revealing a head of receding brown hair. Maria remained standing.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” she asked. Lili chose that moment to wake up from her nap, charging into the room and running up to the detective, tail wagging frantically. Ehrenfeld smiled and gave her a scratch behind the ears. _Good girl,_ thought Maria. _Get on his good side for me._

“No thank you.” He straightened up and looked serious again. “Please, sit down. This won’t take long.”

She sat in the chair opposite from him, not wanting to get too close. “What is this regarding?”

“Frau von Reichter, I understand you were recently in the hospital for a miscarriage.”

Maria was confused for a moment. What was he talking about? This was supposed to be about her involvement in the resistance. Confusion turned to humiliation. She didn’t want to talk about this yet again, especially with a complete stranger.

He was watching her carefully, waiting for her response. “Y-yes, I was.” She looked down at her hands.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You see, when these things happen, the Reich requires us to investigate them to make sure everything is – well, “above board,” let’s say. Ma’am, your husband is a doctor, is that right?”

She realized what he was implying. “He’s a scientist,” she said coldly. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m just here to find out if anything is else is going on,” the detective said in an innocent voice.

“Detective, I wanted that baby. We both did.” She was angry now. The Nazis truly had no shame or decency. “Why would I have gone halfway through a pregnancy if I was going to end it? Why would I have bought the clothes or the bassinet? For God’s sake, why would…” she felt her throat closing up and couldn’t finish.

“I’m sorry ma’am, these are the kinds of questions we’re required to ask. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s necessary for me to follow through with an investigation. Now, I know there was nothing in either of your histories to suggest anything suspicious and I don’t believe that you did this on purpose. I’m sure your husband will answer me the same way you did.”

Oh God. Was he going to go find Max and humiliate him at work? She knew how much pressure he was always under to be an upstanding citizen of the Reich. What would people say if they saw the _Kripo_ talking to him?

“Please wait to talk to him when he’s not at work,” she pleaded. “You can’t embarrass him like that, I’m begging you.”

Ehrenfeld’s expression seemed to soften. He appeared as if he believed in her innocence, and maybe felt a little sympathetic. Maria hoped she was reading him correctly.

“All right,” he conceded. “I’ll call his office and ask to speak with him somewhere more discreet. I’m sure you won’t hear from me again after that.” He stood up and put his hat back on. “Thank you for your time ma’am, and I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

When he had gone and the door had been shut behind him, Maria stood stunned for a moment before sinking to her knees in a mixture of relief and sadness. She curled up against the door and cried while Lili patiently sat at her feet.

This was all her fault. There must be something wrong with her. That was why she had been so afraid and begged Ehrenfeld not to approach Max at work. She knew the law as well as anyone: a man whose wife couldn’t have children was legally allowed to divorce her and marry a woman who could. If she was unable to carry a baby to term, they would be in trouble. It could cost Max his standing with the intrusive regime dominating their lives. She could be costing him his career.

_But he would never leave me. He loves me…doesn’t he?_

She would have to be very careful from now on. It wasn’t that she doubted his love – at least, she told herself it wasn’t. She would just have to make sure she did everything she could to stay on his good side and make life as easy for him as possible. Even if he wanted sex again. Even if he wanted to try for another baby before she was ready.

Detective Ehrenfeld was right, and Maria never did end up hearing from him again. He must have talked to Max, but she didn’t hear him speak a word about it. Eventually, she slowly felt herself coming up out of the darkness and back to something resembling normality, but she knew a part of her would always mourn her lost daughter.

Her ordinary life continued - at least as ordinarily as life could during wartime – until one day near the end of January 1942. Max came home that evening with an announcement, the implications of which Maria would not realize until much later:

“We’re moving to Poland.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Eight**

Maria rested her chin in her hand and stared out the window, watching the countryside rush by. It was quiet inside the train cabin; Lili was asleep in her carrier and the only sound was the low rumble of wheels on track, and the occasional turn of a book page.

She felt herself getting angry again. They were moving without her consent to a country she didn’t know for a reason she was not allowed to learn. Her previous resolve to stay on Max’s good side had ended the evening he came home to tell her they were leaving. She was blindsided by the news – she didn’t want to leave Berlin and everything she knew behind, not without any warning or without a say in the matter. She had said as much to Max, and he had become furious at her. This was his opportunity to make huge advances in scientific research, he had yelled, and here she was putting her own comfort first. Ahead of his career and the good of her country! It was a stab in the back after everything he had done for her. Maria had refused to back down, appalled at this side of him she had never seen before. They had argued a handful of times in the past, but not like this. Never like this.

Finally, she had stormed into the bedroom with Lili and locked the door. Eventually, Max had given up trying to get her out and spent the rest of the night drinking. Maria discovered as much when she snuck out in the early morning to use the bathroom and saw him passed out on the sofa surrounded by more liquor than she realized they even had. She had pointedly ignored him and his massive hangover the next day. He had brought it on himself and he could manage it himself as well.

The memory of their fight made her turn from the window and glare daggers across the cabin at Max. He was completely engrossed in yet another book about evolution or biochemistry or something similar. Which was what he read when he wasn’t reading the newspaper. At least he wasn’t making those little opinion noises to himself again, she conceded. If he started doing that she might have to strangle him.

The cabin was a rather small space and as Maria glared, she couldn’t help but become aware of a pair of eyes watching her. Annoyed, she met the gaze of her observer, the young blond man sitting next to her husband. Herr Krumens. Max’s ever-loyal assistant from the university whom he had brought with him to his new place of work, wherever it was. From the day they had met, something in his demeanor towards her had always seemed a bit odd, but for the most part she had tried to be patient with him. Now her patience was really about to be put to the test.

On top of everything else, she had been frustrated beyond belief to learn that the three of them would be living together once they got to Poland. Wonderful. Now there would be two men to cook for and clean up after, and right now she didn’t even want to speak to either of them.

 _You just keep on frowning at me like that,_ she thought, staring Krumens down. _I don’t owe you a damn thing, you little bitch._

Whether it was the absurdity of the situation, or the thought of calling Krumens a bitch, something struck Maria as being very funny just then and she let out a little snort of laughter before she could stop herself. The noise distracted Max from his book, and he looked up at her from behind a forelock of black hair. Maria had quickly composed herself and was looking out the window as if nothing had happened.

“What was that?”

“What was what?” answered Maria, blank-faced.

She received an eyebrow raised in doubt as Max went back to his book. Irritated, she let out a sigh.

This time the book descended to his lap. Max was not impressed with his wife’s behavior. Krumens looked uncomfortable.

“Try language,” he said icily. “It’s much more effective.”

“Sorry, the only language I know is German,” snapped Maria, making a far-from-subtle reference to the topic of their feud.

Max suddenly looked very tired. He rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Maria, we’ve gone over this a dozen times…”

“No, you’ve gone over it a dozen times! I’ve never been allowed any say in this at all!”

Max thrust his face in Maria’s, practically snarling in rage. “Damn it, woman, don’t start with me!” he hissed. “This is neither the time nor the place!”

Those eyes she had fallen in love with; in which she had once seen such intensity and brilliance, now looked to Maria like the black, soulless eyes of a shark. She tried to face him down, but eventually she wavered and looked away in defeat. For the first time, she was afraid of her husband.

They settled into a small two-story house toward the outskirts of town, with a fading white exterior and a small garden in the back. It was not a large village; Maria could easily walk the short distance from home into the center of town. In any other circumstance, she would have found it charming, but she found it a bit disquieting instead.

The house they were living in was nearly fully furnished. They had brought all their own personal belongings such as clothing, bedding and things for the kitchen, but all the larger items - furniture, appliances, even the paintings on the walls – were already in place. They would be sleeping on someone else’s bed. Back at their apartment in Berlin, things would be the same. Maria felt uncomfortable about it. She couldn’t help but wonder who had lived here, and how voluntary their moving out had really been. She wanted to keep everything in the same condition she found it for when they returned. If they returned.

There was a cast iron stove in the kitchen, which was a good thing considering that coal was strictly rationed. Burning wood in the stove would provide additional heat for the house as well as provide hot water on days when they couldn’t get it from the faucets.

Knowing she was going nowhere else for the foreseeable future, Maria realized that she may as well make the best of it. She familiarized herself with village life and was sometimes able to barter things she had for local farm produce and eggs. In the spring, she discovered the remains of an overgrown herb garden in the backyard and cleared away the weeds to revive it.

One of the best deals she made was with the neighboring family who had moved to the village from Germany in much the same way as she had. Like many people, they kept rabbits to supplement their meat rations, in hutches out in the garden. This naturally attracted rats and mice, with which they had been fighting a losing battle until the von Reichters moved in.

Lili the dachshund was a natural hunter, and Maria proposed that she be let out to patrol both gardens and keep the rodent population down. In return, Maria would receive her own rabbit once in a while. The neighbors agreed, and Lili was all too happy to do her part, which she did very well.

Everyone was satisfied with the deal until the neighbors’ four-year-old daughter Inga caught sight of Lili catching her first conquest, a large rat. Maria happened to be out in the herb garden and heard her crying as her mother came outside to see what was wrong.

“She’s sad about the rat,” Inga’s mother said, shrugging, as Maria came through the gate to make sure Lili wasn’t misbehaving. “She didn’t want it to die.”

Maria smiled and knelt down. “Can I tell you a secret, Inga?” she asked. The little girl nodded, sniffling.

“Well, I don’t really like it when Lili kills little animals, either.”

Inga looked surprised. “You don’t?”

Maria shook her head. “No. But I also know that Lili’s doing what she was meant to do. She’s a hunting dog, and that means she’s happy when she hunts. And dogs are also happy when they help people. She thinks she’s helping us when she catches rats.” Lili came running up to Maria, wagging her tail. “See how happy she is to help us?”

Inga smiled and patted Lili’s head. “She’s happy.”

“That’s right. She’s doing a good job.” Maria stood up again.

Inga’s mother smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” she whispered. Maria wondered how they explained it to the girl whenever one of their rabbits “disappeared.”

“You certainly know how to talk to children,” her neighbor continued at a normal volume. Inga ran off to play, completely unconcerned again. “You know, they seem to be a bit short-staffed at the kindergarten right now. They’ve had to take on a lot of child-minding after normal hours too, with so many women working. I’m sure they’d love to have someone like you around, but I don’t know about the pay.”

Maria’s interest was piqued. The question of being payed didn’t bother her; they were hardly short on money. What she liked was the idea of doing something productive that would get her out of the house on a regular basis.

“Well, I did work at a kindergarten during my _Landfrauenjahr_ ,” she said. “I suppose there’s no harm in asking.”

“That’s great! I hope your husband agrees to it.”

 _So do I,_ thought Maria.

She was clearing the counter top off as dinner finished cooking. The sound of the front door opening and closing filtered in through the house. She heard two pairs of footsteps entering the kitchen behind her and stopping just inside the doorway. Why were they just standing there? That was odd, as was the sound of the footsteps themselves. Something about them sounded different, but she wasn’t sure what.

“You can go ahead and sit down; dinner’s almost ready,” she said, wringing out the dishcloth. She turned to see what they were up to and her heart almost leapt into her throat.

Max and Krumens were standing at the edge of the kitchen, in full SS regalia. Wartime grey, with all the requisite insignia on their lapels and shoulders, and armbands bearing swastikas. That was why their footsteps had sounded different – it was the leather boots.

Maria was about to perform some of the best acting of her life, and she would be impressed with herself later, when she reflected on it.

“Oh!” she said, pretending to be surprised instead of horrified. “What’s this about?”

“We’ve finally been promoted,” Max said smugly. “You’re looking at _Hauptsturmfuhrer_ von Reichter.”

“And _Sturmfuhrer_ Krumens.”

“Well, that’s…that’s very impressive! Congratulations, both of you.” She glanced at the back door. “Sorry, I’ll be right back. I just need something from the garden.”

Walking out back to the herb garden, she threw a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being watched. She got down on her knees as if preparing to pick something, her back to the house. A moment or two passed as she stared at nothing. Then she pressed both fists hard against her mouth and let out a muffled wail of anguish.

She didn’t want to believe it. She had known on some level that Max couldn’t have made it as far as he had without being a member of the Nazi party. That was just the way things worked; whether a person actually believed in it was beside the point. But until now she didn’t know he was in the SS. That was so, so much worse. She had always wanted to believe that he was too smart for all of that. That he was above it. Had she just been lying to herself this whole time?

A strange feeling of calm began to come over her then. It was as if she was not really in her own body, only watching herself from somewhere just behind. As if reality was just a dream or an illusion. She could act her way through this evening easily. It wasn’t really happening. She picked a few sprigs of rosemary and some basil leaves to dry out in the kitchen, then headed back inside.

The house lay pitch black behind the blackout curtains. The only sounds were the soft tick of the alarm clock and Max’s slow, heavy breaths on the back of Maria’s neck as he slept. She felt reality creeping back in again, but at least it had had the decency to wait until she was the only one awake. Thank God that evening was over. She slid out from under her husband’s arm and over to her own side of the bed, pulling the blankets tightly in around her for warmth.

Speaking of God, Maria wasn’t altogether sure if she believed in one these days. It seemed harder and harder to. Still, this was when she always ended up praying, just in case. It was the same prayer each time:

_Please, let this be the time it worked. Please let me have another baby. I’m so scared._


	10. Chapter 10

**In A Black Mercedes, In the Center of Town**

Enough was enough. Werner Schneider had to die.

Since the day he had first learned of the man, von Reichter had been keeping a careful eye on him, recognizing the threat Schneider’s theories posed to his own. When he learned that Schneider would be holding a conference on October 8, he had arranged to return to Berlin for a few days in order to further assess the situation. And the situation wasn’t good.

It seemed every prominent scientist and executive in Germany had shown up. Von Reichter sat inconspicuously at the back of the room and fumed as Schneider laid out his theories and proposals for a robotic army with great confidence. Worse still, they were received with overwhelming enthusiasm. Now there was a very real possibility that his work could soon overshadow that of von Reichter’s. Something had to be done, and it had to be done tonight.

As he made his slow, careful drive through the darkened streets, he was once again glad that Maria hadn’t expressed a desire to go with him when he told her he would be in Berlin. Not that he had any intention of bringing her anyway. He certainly didn’t want to waste what little time he had there socializing with her family. Where she had ever gotten her intelligence from was a mystery to him, as he found her family rather dull-witted. (Then again, he found most people dull-witted.) That mother of hers was a real piece of work.

When Frau Schweitzer had first written to him, von Reichter had been rather taken aback. Why, he wondered, was this woman so desperate to set her daughter up with a complete stranger? She was still a teenager, not an old maid. Still, he was nearly thirty at the time, and as little as he personally cared about it, the fact that he was still unmarried could soon begin to count as a mark against him in the eyes of the Fuhrer. He decided to at least humor the old broad and take the opportunity that was being given to him.

He had showed up at the Schweitzer house that night in 1939 expecting, at worst, to spend his evening in the company of some snotty Prussian bitch. Instead, he had found a very sweet and lonely girl, desperate for someone intelligent to connect with. It didn’t hurt that she happened to be the most beautiful woman he had even seen. He had found himself strongly attracted to her almost at once and was determined to have her as his own.

Things were far from perfect these days, however. It had been just over a year since Maria had lost the baby and she was having trouble conceiving again. He had attempted to remedy this by injecting her several times with estrogen and progesterone, in the guise of vaccinations or vitamin shots. All that this seemed to do was make her more irritable and apparently, to experience some light bleeding. He had been looking at the personal calendar she kept hidden in her nightstand. She kept a detailed account of her cycle and any anomalies, evidently hoping she could learn something from it. Von Reichter didn’t need her to be more irritable; she could be enough of a bitch on her own. At least she knew enough to realize the pressure he was under and had never once denied him his husbandly rights. She was probably worried he was going to divorce her, and while the thought had certainly crossed his mind, the truth was, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was true she could be a pain in the ass, and it was also true that all she had given him was a stillborn daughter, but despite knowing he deserved better…he loved her.

The issue of Maria’s infertility brought him back to thinking about Schneider. On top of everything else, the bastard was married and his wife, who lived back in Hamburg, had been able to give him children. That was an insult that simply couldn’t stand. Von Reichter gritted his teeth and tried to get his temper back under control as he brought the car to a stop outside the officer’s club. He needed to appear calm as he made a proposal of his own.

The soldiers in question had been the reaping the benefits of his latest experiment. He had altered the brains of some young nuns from a monastery, reducing the rational parts of their grey matter and increasing their libidos. They were the perfect bartering tool with which to obtain a group of young men to act as his personal assassins.

He knocked on the door, and presently it was opened by one Lt. Lundgren, who enthusiastically invited him in. He led von Reichter into the front room. The girls were, unsurprisingly, in the midst of pleasuring themselves with several officers.

“Your guinea pigs are working out wonderfully,” said Lundgren. “Look! They want to make love even when they’re asleep.” It was true. The girl lying across the back of the sofa was doing just that.

Lundgren continued excitedly. “They satisfy three men every fifteen minutes! We had to ask for reinforcements from the cavalry and…”

Von Reichter interrupted him. “I don’t need to hear it, Lt. Lundgren. I didn’t come to bask in the success of my experiments.” This was not strictly true - he never got tired of that. “I’m here for something else. I need you to kill a man. A dangerous individual, who professes degenerate ideas contrary to the cause of the Third Reich.”

Lundgren wasn’t at all phased by his proposal, and he continued. “If you do…the girls I gave you to try out with be a gift for you.”

The lieutenant reacted exactly as von Reichter had expected. “Damn!” He exclaimed. He informed the others of the deal, which they readily agreed to. Von Reichter knew they would, of course. They weren’t as stupid as they looked – well, not completely. They knew those girls could make them rich, marketed to men serving on the battlefront. He told the officers to follow his car to the house Schneider was staying in, as he would be coming back from dinner with some of the top brass very soon.

They parked both cars a short distance away and approached the house using their flashlights as little as possible. Von Reichter watched from the arch of an alleyway as Schneider’s car appeared around a corner, headlights nothing but two thin beams as per blackout regulations. The officers stood somewhere nearby in the dark, with their guns presumably drawn. It was all too easy to hide and strike against a target in these conditions, and for that the doctor was thankful.

Schneider got out of his car and had barely started the walk to the front door when the night was suddenly pierced by the flash and explosion of six bullets tearing into his flesh. Von Reichter smiled triumphantly as the brief detonations gave him six glimpses of his enemy being slaughtered, six still scenes he would be able to go over again and again in his mind as he drove back home later. Their part of the bargain complete, Lundgren and the others quickly made their getaway, leaving their victim in a growing pool of blood in the street.

Von Reichter couldn’t help himself and snuck a quick glance with his flashlight. Schneider’s clothing was stained dark red and he gasped and writhed pathetically for a while longer, before going still. The sound of the door opening made the doctor switch off his light. He couldn’t see much of anything, but he suspected it must be Schneider’s assistant, one Andreas Kluge, coming to see what had happened. He expected to hear the man scream in horror, but strangely, all he heard were his footsteps shuffling a little, as if he were vainly looking around for the perpetrator – or maybe witnesses. Then there was the unmistakable sound of the body being dragged back inside, and the door shutting once again. That was a bit odd. Maybe he wanted to mourn in private?

In any case, it was over now. Having successfully eliminated the threat to his career, it was time to return to Poland and get back to work. He did wonder, with amusement, just what life had been like back at the house while he was gone. He had no qualms about leaving Maria and Krumens alone together. After all, the two of them seemed to hate each other and it was really very entertaining to see them try to get along just to please him. He hoped the house was still standing. What would they ever do without him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again, r/MagentaHamster for the comic translations!


	11. Chapter 11

**In A House, Somewhere to The East**

It was only October, but the house was goddamned freezing tonight.

Krumens just wasn’t going to be able to sleep despite all the blankets. He got back out of bed, put on his housecoat and slippers, and headed down to the basement.

What little heat the house was getting came from a gravity furnace, also known as an octopus due to the monstrosity of duct-work sprouting out of the top. It ran on coal, but being strictly rationed, they never had all that much to run it with at any one time. Krumens knew there was little he could do about it, but he was annoyed enough to at least try.

He fiddled with the damper for a moment before picking up a long metal rod with three curved prongs on the end, which looked like fingers cupped together. It was for grabbing clinkers out of the coal pile inside the furnace. He opened the door with the sleeve of his housecoat. The fire felt hot enough on his face, but upstairs it was a different story. The glow from the fire pit was a dull orange-red. Maybe if he got some more oxygen flowing in there…

He started poking the rod around blindly, trying to turn the coals and maybe make them burn hotter. He didn’t really know much about furnaces. At least standing in front of the open door was warming him up a little.

The rod was heating up from the fire, but Krumens didn’t realize until it was too late.

“Ow! Son of a bitch!” he yelled. As he dropped the rod, he brought his arm up against the equally hot door frame of the furnace. “Fuck!” He stumbled back and managed to kick the ash bucket with the back of his heel, which sent it scraping loudly across the floor, the tools inside rattling noisily. “God damn it!”

“What in God’s name are you doing down there?” said an exasperated voice.

Oh great. Maria had heard him making an ass of himself. He held his hand and arm against his body and watched her descend the basement stairs, her dog following close behind her.

She looked at his arm. “What did you do to yourself? Let me see.” He hesitated in embarrassment. “Come on,” she said, as if coaxing a small child. He was never going to live this down, but he decided to show her anyway. His hand was starting to blister and his arm felt as if it was doing the same. She held his hand in hers, palm up and inspected it. She shook her head.

“I don’t know about you sometimes. Come upstairs and I’ll get you fixed up.”

Krumens and Maria sat at the kitchen table while she treated his burns with the first aid kit. She put iodine on his hand and he winced.

“Ow! Be careful!”

“Oh, stop it. I’ve patched up kindergartners who complained less than you.” She started wrapping gauze over the rod-shaped series of blisters rising on his palm.

Krumens huffed. “You didn’t have to help me, you know.”

“Of course I did,” she replied. “I just can’t stand to see a dumb animal suffer.”

“Hey!”

Maria looked up at him and snickered. “Sorry.” She started on the burn on his arm. “You know, if you’re that cold, I can always put more wood in the stove. Or I could warm a pan up just enough to put under the blankets like a hot water bottle.” She finished up and started putting things away. “Leave your housecoat and shirt out tomorrow and I’ll see what I can do about them.”

He rolled down his sleeve and saw a hole burned through it that he hadn’t noticed. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Well, I might as well make myself useful somehow,” she said in a soft voice, leaving the room to put the first aid kit away.

Her statement made him pause. She was normally so confident in her tone. Had she meant to sound so vulnerable just now?

Krumens had always been jealous and resentful of von Reichter’s wife. Now, he began to feel very badly for her. How lonely she must be out here in a strange country, on her own so much of the time. He spent more time with her husband than she was ever able to, and their relationship had been strained ever since the three of them arrived here. She had begun working at the village kindergarten at least, but even that must be a bit painful. He knew all about the miscarriage; and probably more than she did. Herr Doktor had confided in him after it had happened. How he had threatened to report the doctor at the hospital to the Gestapo unless he was allowed to see the body. How it had clearly been dead a few days before her body went into premature labor. Krumens had been terribly sad for them, and yet at the same time, he had been honored that his mentor had chosen to share something so private with him.

Maria came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table, resting her chin in her hand. She looked at Krumens and smiled.

“Now the hard part is going to be working with that bandage on,” she said.

Krumens looked at his hand. She had done a good job. “Where did you learn first aid?” he asked.

She looked surprised. “In the BDM.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Sometimes he forgot how much younger she was.

“You know,” Maria mused, “we’ve lived together for months, but I don’t even know your first name. What is it?”

Oh no. He had always hated this question.

“It’s…it’s Siegfried.”

She sat up and grinned. “Siegfried? Really? Wow, that’s…that’s a serious name!” she giggled.

He frowned at her and said nothing.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. Your parents must really like opera.”

“I don’t know,” admitted Krumens. “I never met them. My father died in the war before I was born, then my mother gave me up for adoption. I grew up in an orphanage.”

He saw Maria’s face turn red with embarrassment. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I feel terrible.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

They sat in awkward silence for a while. Krumens glanced over at Maria, who looked lost in worried thought. She really had made herself indispensable ever since they arrived here. That deal with the neighbors had turned out well, and she made all sorts of good trades with the villagers. She was very clever. Maybe he had been judging her too harshly. She must be trying so hard out of fear, to compensate for not giving Herr Doktor an heir. He could have divorced her long ago, and Krumens had sometimes been amazed that he hadn’t.

Presently, the woman got up from the table and stretched. “Well, I’m going to try to get some sleep. Do you need anything before I go?”

Krumens ran his good hand over his face and sighed. He was more tired than he had realized. “No, thanks. I just need a smoke before I head off.”

She winked at him. “Don’t burn yourself again.”

“Ha, ha.”

He watched her walk out of the kitchen, once again followed closely by her well-behaved little dachshund.

 _I hope your luck turns around soon, Maria_ , he thought.


	12. Chapter 12

**Nine**

_Well, I guess that settles it_ , concluded Maria as she looked at the calendar in her hands. September 1944. Three months since her last period. She tucked the calendar back inside her nightstand drawer and turned to walk out of the room.

The relief hit her a few seconds later. She sat down quickly on the bed as she felt her legs turn to rubber. Then she fell back, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She did both. After three years, she was finally pregnant again.

She had tried not to get too excited in the past month, just in case. There had been close calls before that turned out to be nothing and she didn’t want to be too disappointed if this was another one. But she was never this late, and the same familiar symptoms of nausea and tender breasts had started up again. She had even tried the old test of looking at herself with a hand mirror, but she had never spent much time looking at herself down there when she wasn’t pregnant and couldn’t tell if anything was different. Back in Berlin, she could have had a concrete answer from a pregnancy test at the doctors. But out here and with the war going so badly, she didn’t expect the village doctor to be able to send a test away to a lab, let alone get a result in anywhere near two weeks. So, she had decided to be patient and see what happened.

And it really had happened. Now the only question that remained was whether or not to tell Max right away. Part of her wanted to tell him as soon as he walked through the door, to break the tension that was always there under the surface. But there was another part of her that liked the idea of withholding the information. It was like holding a small bit of power over him, and power was something she never felt she had much of. She decided to wait a while longer and see if he would notice on his own before she chose to tell him.

After about a week and half, however, the novelty wore off. Max still hadn’t managed to notice anything different, and Maria really couldn’t believe how unobservant he was being. She wasn’t obviously showing yet unless she was naked, but she was avoiding certain foods again and she felt as if it were written on her face. How could someone so smart be so dense? It wasn’t as if he had noticed but chosen not to say anything. She knew he wanted a baby as much as she did. He was just too wrapped up in his theories and experiments and equations to notice that the heir he wanted was less than six months away from entering the world.

She considered herself a patient woman, but one night, Maria felt her patience finally wear out. She stalked into the small room Max used as an office. He was working away industriously at something, a cloud of cigarette smoke hanging above the desk. She stood in the doorway and glowered at the back of his head. Enough was enough. She stalked silently up behind him until she was standing right at his back. He hadn’t heard her approach.

“Is that all you ever do?” she asked, voice dripping with contempt.

Max was startled, and he hated being startled. Turning to respond to the insolent remark, he stood up and gave Maria a look of disgust.

“What I am doing,” he replied through clenched teeth, “is of the utmost importance to the future of the Reich. And when I am busy…” and here his voice began to increase in volume, “…I cannot be interrupted simply to entertain you!”

“You’re always busy! You love Germany more than you love me!” accused Maria.

She made a noise of surprise as Max grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her towards him.

“Don’t you ever say that to me again,” he growled at her. “Don’t you ever say that!”

Finding her voice, Maria shot back, “I’ll say whatever I want because it’s true, von Reichter!”

He smacked her in the face, hard. She cried out in shock and pain, stumbling away from him. Looking back at Max through a blur of hot tears, she saw that his expression had remained the same. He stood his ground, shaking with rage.

She held a hand to her throbbing cheek. “Oh Max,” she whimpered, “I’m going to have a baby and you’re too busy to even notice.” She turned away from him, hugging herself and starting to sob. She leaned against the door frame and cried miserably.

He was silent for a second or two. She heard him approach slowly and flinched when she felt his hand on her shoulder.

“Are you sure?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes!” she replied angrily in between sobs.

More silence.

“You should go to bed and get some sleep then,” he ventured quietly.

“All right,” she replied. She felt too broken to argue anymore.

Lying in bed, Maria stared up into the darkness and listened to the noises coming from the back garden. It sounded like cursing, but she could only catch a few random pieces of words. There was a smash of broken glass and she realized that Max was drunk. Lovely. She was sure the neighbors could hear him out there, too. He’d better not wake up their children with his bullshit. How humiliating.

Some time later, she heard Max stumbling back into the house. He somehow managed to climb the stairs and as she heard him enter the bedroom, she lay still and pretended to be asleep. He made it about half a meter before he lost his balance and fell over himself.

“Damn floor moved,” he slurred as he got up and crawled onto the bed in his full uniform, boots and all. Maria felt him groping for her breasts and angrily flipped over. She lay stiffly and waited for him to give up. Mercifully, he soon did as he passed out in a drunken stupor.

“Asshole,” muttered Maria, and finally let herself drift off to sleep.

This time, something was different. Maria could feel it. She felt much less nauseous and tired this time, and by October, she was no longer getting sick at all. She still wanted to be careful, and when Max told her he didn’t want her pushing herself, she didn’t fight him. She said goodbye to the staff and children at the kindergarten around this time. It was just as well; so many families were starting to leave the village that they would easily be able to cope without her. As her baby began to grow, she was finally able to take her maternity clothes out of storage, something she had seriously wondered if she would ever be able to do.

One day in mid-November, Maria was walking into the village with her shopping basket when she felt something strange. She stopped in her tracks, frightened. Was it a contraction? Her mind raced back to the cramps she had felt the day she lost her daughter. She couldn’t take losing another child. It would kill her.

She felt it again. It didn’t feel like a cramp, not really. It was something else. It felt like…movement. Her baby was starting to move! It wasn’t going anywhere, it was alive. She was overjoyed. She put a protective hand on her stomach as she continued on her way.

 _He_ was alive. It was a little boy. She felt sure of it, just like she had with her daughter. And she knew the only name she could give him was that of her closest friend; the boy she promised never to forget all those years ago. She would name him Josef.

Christmas had come and gone, and Maria was feeling a mixture of boredom and worry.

By this point it was crystal clear that the war was not going to end well for Germany. Maria missed her family and worried about their safety in Berlin. She missed Janina terribly, and feared what might have happened to her. She had sent a letter before they left, telling her what had happened with the baby and that they were moving, but that she didn’t know where to yet. After they had arrived, she had written again, but had never gotten a reply. Maybe mail was no longer being allowed in…or out. She still held out a faint hope that she would hear from her friend again, but it was getting dimmer as the years went on.

There was a lot of empty time to worry as well. Maria wasn’t working anymore, and the garden had long gone into its winter dormancy. Even the neighbors were gone now. They had taken all but a few of the rabbits, leaving the remainder in gratitude to her and Lili. She dreaded having to eventually slaughter them. She had never killed an animal in her life.

With so much time left on her own to brood over things, Maria tried to occupy herself as well as she could. She had tried her hand at sewing, but she never was all that good at it beyond repairing holes and lost buttons. She spent most of her time reading, trying to teach herself from Max’s book s on biology and biochemistry. Sometimes it was just too dry, and she had to switch to the books about mythology that Krumens had lent her. Surprisingly, he was a bit of a self-made expert on the subject.

She saw less and less of the men, and as lonely as it could get, she also found it a lot less stressful. She felt like a bundle of nerves when Max was home, afraid she could set his temper off at any time. Luckily when he did come home, it was usually late at night, and he was often gone before she even woke up in the morning. However, while he was there, he usually only wanted one thing. At least it didn’t require talking.

The snow continued to fall from a pale grey sky. Maria looked up from her book and watched it for a while. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window and was a little startled again at how tired she looked. She held up her forearm and turned it back and forth. Her wrist looked bony and she could see the tendons in her hands more clearly. Rations were getting more and more severe. She trusted her body to make sure her baby got his share, but the rest of her was beginning to feel the strain. At least Lili could eat whatever she caught in the garden, which was a relief. Maria wasn’t sure she’d be able to feed the poor thing enough otherwise.

Wherever it was that Max and Krumens were working, they were certainly having an easier time of it, she thought resentfully. If it were up to her, she’d have let Max’s uniform out a bit by now. She wasn’t the only one whose waistline was expanding.

Maria found herself curious from time to time about their work. She couldn’t help it. Of course she understood that anything connected to the war effort, such as it was, had to be hidden from public knowledge. But the more she read about the how the body worked, the more she wondered what exactly it was they could be doing out there.

She didn’t have to wonder forever. She was sweeping the hallway floor outside Max’s office on a dark afternoon when she noticed a folder lying on top of the desk inside. That was unusual. It was true he didn’t tend to close the door – there was no point, it didn’t lock anyway – but the desk itself had locking drawers that she assumed he kept his work in. She didn’t expect he would otherwise allow her in there to look at his books. Maybe he had been in a rush that morning. Or maybe whatever was inside wasn’t all that critical.

Maria stood in the doorway debating what to do next. Should she look? Even if it wasn’t important, she knew what would happen if he discovered she had been going through his things. He wouldn’t do anything that could hurt the baby, but he certainly wasn’t above hitting her in the face. On the other hand, when was she going to get an opportunity like this again?

Feeling a bit like Bluebeard’s wife, she entered the room and approached the desk. The folder sat looking innocuous; there was nothing written on it to indicate its contents. Maria didn’t sit down. She wanted to make sure nothing looked out of place when she was done. She carefully pulled back the top half of the folder, holding the contents down to keep the whole thing from moving out of its original position on the desk.

The first page appeared to be a letter, addressed to someone further up the chain of command whose name Maria didn’t recognize. She skimmed through its contents. Max seemed to be explaining several experiments that he claimed would decrease casualties on the battlefield. That didn’t sound so bad. But then she began to read further.

_After continued success, I began the human trials. This procedure was performed on several subjects…_

Maria’s breath caught in her throat. Human trials? How did he get anyone to volunteer? A possibility occurred to her which she didn’t want to think about. She kept reading.

_The head of subject A was successfully reattached to the body of subject B and revived with the majority of basic functions intact…_

Her heart dropped into her bowels and she began shaking uncontrollably. This was horrific. It couldn’t possibly be voluntary. Was he performing these things on prisoners?

Her question was answered when she realized there were several large photos in the folder. Cringing, she lifted the rest of the pages up to reveal the first one. She was so afraid of what she might see, but at the same time, she had to know.

She was presented with the image of two emaciated men in prisoner’s uniforms, standing side by side against the wall. She looked closer and saw that they both wore a yellow six-pointed star. The Star of David all Jews were made to wear. Was that why they were imprisoned? She felt sick. Now there was no doubt in her mind that this was involuntary. She picked up the photo with a trembling hand and looked at the next, moaning in disgust as she saw it.

It was one of the men – or at least, it was his head. The body it was attached to was probably that of the other. He didn’t look quite conscious, which may have been a small bit of mercy. Maria couldn’t imagine how he would feel once he realized what had happened to him. She decided to look at the next photo.

Although she was fast enough to move away from the desk, she couldn’t quite make it out of the room before she was sick all over herself and the floor. She fell on her knees, crying and gagging again over what she had just seen.

He had done the same experiment on a child. A child who couldn’t have been more than ten years old, wearing the same prison stripes and star as the men. It had to be a prison camp. One of the concentration camps the Reich had been sending people to since the Thirties. Only now, it seemed, they weren’t only sending adults. And scientists like Max were using them as guinea pigs.

Suddenly it was all coming together with horrible clarity. Where all the hateful rhetoric, violence and persecution had eventually led. What Hitler had meant by a solution to the “Jewish Problem.”

Why Janina had never written back.

For one brief, terrible moment, Maria contemplated ending her life and that of her child, to spare him the horror of ever knowing what his father had done. But she couldn’t bring herself to kill him, even out of mercy. Then she considered waiting until Max and Krumens were asleep and shooting them both with Max’s gun. But if she did that, she would definitely be caught, then executed as soon as she gave birth, and what would happen to Josef after that? It was no use, she told herself. She couldn’t undo what they had done by ending their lives. She couldn’t kill them anyway. She couldn’t even kill a rabbit.

Maria put her head in her hands and cried for a long time. All she had done for the resistance had been for nothing. How could they had ever thought they could fight against something like this? And meanwhile, she had been foolish enough to fall in love with a man who turned out to be the devil incarnate. She couldn’t do a damned thing. She had been kidding herself to think otherwise.

Finally, she forced herself to get up and rid the room of any evidence she had been there. She scrubbed the floor clean and tried not to look as she put the folder back together again. She went into the bathroom and tried to clean herself up. Josef moved inside her and she was reminded of the child in the photo, which made her start crying again. She couldn’t stop crying and that made her get sick again. Eventually, she was so exhausted that she fell asleep sitting on the floor next to the toilet.

Maria awoke to the sound of Max and Krumens arriving home. She felt disoriented, and a little cold from leaning against the bathtub. She listened as the men came looking for her, remarking on how dark and quiet the house was. Soon enough they found her. She remained unmoving and didn’t look up as Max’s boots approached her.

“There you are,” he said, kneeling down and feeling her forehead with concern. “Are you all right?”

 _Don’t touch me,_ she wanted to scream, _you’re a monster!_ But she stayed silent and only nodded.

Max took her temperature and found nothing out of the ordinary. “I thought I told you not to push yourself, Liebchen. You see what happens?’ He kissed her on the head. “You need to go to bed now.”

He walked out, leaving Maria on the floor. She noticed Krumens remaining in the hall.

“I can make us something to eat in a minute, Herr Doktor,” he called after Max. Then he entered the bathroom himself.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” he said softly, lifting Maria to her feet and putting her arm around his shoulder. She felt weak and held onto his other hand for balance as they made their way to the bedroom.

For all his faults, he still seemed capable of feeling pity, if only for her and not others. She remembered the look on his face the morning after Max had hit her, when he saw the ugly bruise on her cheek.

“Do you want me to bring you anything?” he asked at the door.

“No, that’s alright. I just want to go to sleep,” she answered. _Maybe forever._ She walked into the room and turned to shut the door, then paused. “Krumens?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” she whispered, closing the door and seeing that same look on his face.


	13. Chapter 13

**Ten**

Maria saw the waves lapping at the shore and realized she was dreaming.

She was standing on the beach, at the seaside village where her family used to vacation when she was a child. The overcast sky reflected dully on the surface of the water. She felt a presence and turned.

A little boy with black hair was picking up seashells and rocks nearby. He looked to be about five years old. He stopped and looked up at Maria with eyes the same shade of green as hers.

_My son,_ thought Maria. She was just about to speak to him when suddenly…

…she woke up. How disappointing. She wondered what she would have said.

She decided she might as well get up now that she was awake, because as usual, her bladder was screaming at her. She sat up and turned on the lamp. The hands of the alarm clock indicated it was a little past six. Oh well. She wasn’t all that comfortable anyway. It was March, and she was very close to her due date. With some effort, she got to her feet. Rubbing her eyes, she turned to go to the dresser and stopped short.

“What in the hell?”

The top of the dresser was completely cleared off. Her luggage was lined up in front of it, and on inspection Maria found each piece was full of her clothing and belongings, all folded and organized tidily. On the tallest suitcase there lay a manila envelope. She opened it with growing curiosity and concern. Inside were a passport, several identification papers (none of which bore her real name), a significant amount of cash, and a folded piece of paper. Maria unfolded it and saw Max’s handwriting. He rambled on as he always did:

_Liebchen,_

_It’s too dangerous for us to stay here any longer. The Red army is approaching from the East and their allies from the West. My reputation as a top scientist is too well known, and my knowledge is of great interest and use to each of them. However, being a German and therefore their enemy, they would most likely imprison or execute me before proceeding to take my work for themselves. I have no doubt this puts you and the baby at risk as well._

_I have put together a plan to ensure our safety. As you read this, in fact, Krumens and I are already carrying it out. Using the passport and papers in this envelope, you will travel by train through the Bavarian mountains and into the Alps. We will meet at the Swiss border where we can travel together in safety. It’s likely you will begin going into labour at this time, and I will take you to a Swiss hospital to have the baby. I realize this may be inconvenient and stressful for you, but there really is no other choice. After “Josef” is born, I will explain to you the rest of my plan and with luck we will quickly continue on our way._

_I have gone ahead of you and taken measures to ensure that your journey will be as easy and efficient as possible. I have made all the reservations and the train stations are expecting you. The money should cover any other expenses. This afternoon, two soldiers will arrive at the house in an army vehicle to take you to the first station. Remember to go by the name on your passport and you should have no problems._

_-Max_

By the time she had finished reading, Maria was frustrated to tears. He was asking her to once again leave her life behind, and this time she had even less of an idea where they might end up. And after the way he had been treating her! Did he really expect she would do what he asked without question?

He did, she realized. After all, what choice did she have? Even if there was anything left standing in Berlin, she couldn’t go back home. All her parents had ever wanted was for her to marry into a noble family. If she left Max, they would never forgive her. They just wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t imagine surviving on her own with a baby in the chaos she knew was coming as Germany fell. Not to mention that he was probably right about being a wanted man – there very well could be a target on her back. And if the Russians got to her first…well, she had heard stories about what would happen then. She was trapped. She had to follow Max.

So she got herself and Lili ready, made sure the fire in the stove was out and the furnace was dying down safely. The very last thing she did was open the door to the rabbit hutch. She shooed them out into the garden and watched with envy as they scampered into the underbrush. They had a chance at freedom she might never have again.

It was an uneventful day at the train station, and the man in the ticket office was having a conversation with the conductor. They both looked up as an open army truck rumbled into the parking lot.

“Those are our guys, right?” asked the man in the office, leaning closer to the window glass and squinting. “It’s getting too dark out to see much from in here.”

“Yup. German truck, German soldiers. Haven’t seen too many of them lately.”

“Probably all moved up to Berlin, or what’s left of it.”

His friend shrugged. “I guess. So are these guys escorting someone, then?”

“Yeah, the Bride of Frankenstein,” smirked the man in the office.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, this crazy doctor came through here on his way to Switzerland this morning. Wanted to make a reservation for his wife for tonight. Now normally, I can do something easy like that without thinking, but the way this guy was talking down to me, I almost couldn’t do it at all! Right from the start, he acted like I was wasting his time with his stupidity – you wouldn’t believe how intense this guy was!”

“Shit, sounds like a real people person.”

“You’re telling me! Anyway, that wasn’t the end of the show. He had this assistant or something who was following him around like a dog. I could hear them out in the waiting room and the asshole was going on about “not being respected enough” and how he was so insulted by people who don’t understand his “incredible advances,” whatever the hell that means. And his lackey was eating it up! I couldn’t help but listen in, it was insane!”

“At least you got some entertainment out of – oh, wow,” the conductor interrupted himself in surprise.

“What?” the other man asked, trying to see what his friend saw. “Isn’t it her?” He craned his neck and caught a glimpse of the arriving party. “Well, I’ll be damned…”

The procession consisted of a very pretty and heavily pregnant woman, followed by two hulking soldiers with three suitcases and a dog carrier. The sight was more than a little unusual; the two men and the handful of people waiting on the platform watched them curiously.

“Um…Frau Planck?” the man in the office asked the woman as she approached.

“That’s right.” She looked sweet.

He met her gaze, went pink, and tried to avoid it. “Uh, your seat has been reserved…um, may I see your passport, please?” He went pinker as he wondered if that had sounded at all suggestive. The conductor was leaning against the opposite wall for support, shaking with silent laughter at his friend.

The passport was stamped with the bold image of an eagle, clutching a swastika in its talons. The woman thanked him politely and made her way to the waiting room, soldiers in tow. After the train arrived, and all the passengers and luggage were aboard, the soldiers returned to their truck and disappeared down the road. The ticket office man and the conductor watched the train chug away thoughtfully.

“Poor kid,” said the conductor, resuming their conversation. “Having to go all the way to Switzerland alone with a baby coming. Just to follow her nutcase husband.”

His friend made a noise of agreement. “How did a nice girl like that end up with a guy like him?” he mused.

The alpine scenery was gorgeous. Far up in the snowy mountains, it seemed hard to believe that the rest of Europe was embroiled in war. Still, Maria would have preferred to see it under other circumstances.

The night before, she had been waiting at another station to catch her next train when she had heard her name – well, her alias – being paged to the office. There was a telephone call for her from Switzerland. She took the receiver, slightly annoyed at having yet more attention drawn to her. She was already getting enough looks for being out in public while hugely pregnant. She didn’t particularly feel like talking to the person responsible for it all.

He had asked her how things were going and she told him, bluntly. “My feet hurt, my back hurts, I’m very uncomfortable and people keep staring at me. How are you?”

“Well, I’m sorry Liebchen, but you’re just going to have to put up with it until you get here. It’ll be over soon,” replied Max.

“What if I go into labor before I get there?”

“You won’t.”

“But what if I do?” She would absolutely die of embarrassment. And what if something went wrong and she couldn’t get to a hospital in time? “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she whispered, voice trembling.

“It’s almost over, I promise.”

“I hope so,” she said, thinking, _what good are your promises?_ They said goodbye and she handed the receiver back defeatedly.

At least she had some privacy on the train. There weren’t very many passengers, and she purposely isolated herself in the back of the car. It made her feel slightly less stressed. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too busy at the Swiss border, although she had a feeling she was far from the only German passing through these days. They were like rats deserting a sinking ship.

Maria felt Josef kick and turn over inside her and she held her stomach protectively. Any day now she would finally get to meet him. Would her parents ever get to do the same? Maybe she would never see them again. The thought pulled her down further into despair.

What a Faustian bargain she had made, she thought. Agreeing to Max’s help to get her into university and falling in love with him had cost her everything: her career goals, her family, her happiness. And the worst part of it all was this: somehow, deep inside her, some part of her still loved him. She didn’t understand it herself. Maybe she was just mourning the person she had thought he was. But if she could really love someone like him, she reasoned, then she deserved to suffer. Her life didn’t matter anymore anyway. Josef’s life was just about to start, and she knew that with Max, he would have everything he needed to survive. If it meant her only chance to give her child a decent life, Maria was willing to sell her soul to the devil know as Max von Reichter.

It was just her and Josef now. He was the only person she had left with whom to share her love. She felt him move again. Softly, so no one would hear, she began to sing to her baby:

_Davon geht die Welt nicht unter_

_Sieht man sie manchmal auch grau,_

_Einmal wird sie wieder bunter,_

_Einmal wird sie wieder himmelblau…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The song Maria sings is called "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter" or "The World's Not Going To End," one of the most popular songs in Germany during the war, by the singer and actress Zarah Leander. It's from a 1942 movie called "The Great Love" and you can find a clip of it on YouTube. In English, the lines she sings are : "the world's not going to end/ even if it looks grey/ one day it will be colorful again/ one day it will be sky blue again"


	14. Chapter 14

**Eleven**

The sun was making its way over the horizon, illuminating the snowy landscape surrounding the train station at the Swiss border. The station itself was nearly empty this morning, and von Reichter liked it that way. The more privacy, the better, until they were well on the other side of the border.

He chain-smoked impatiently as he and Krumens waited on the platform. He knew Maria would come, but he wanted to get moving as soon as possible. That damned dog had better not be slowing her down. Lately it had taken to growling at him whenever he came near. If it didn’t follow its master everywhere she went, he’d like to kick it.

Never mind, he decided, flicking the ashes off his coat. The baby was a much bigger concern to him than her spoiled dachshund. Von Reichter was excited and hoped that it really was a boy. He would raise his son to be a model Aryan man, strong, smart and proud of his German roots. Between his father’s intelligence and his mother’s beauty, little Josef couldn’t help but be remarkable.

Once, he had thought that his wife had the potential to be his assistant. But despite being smart, she had turned out to be too soft-hearted, like most women. She’d never be able to do the things required of her. His son, on the other hand, would be a different story. Josef would be more than capable of helping his father in his scientific pursuits.

 _And someday,_ thought von Reichter, _he’ll continue my legacy._

The doctor was roused from his thoughts by the faint rhythm of a diesel engine approaching. He watched as the train slowly came into view, exhaust pluming out in the cold morning air. Finally, she was here! They were so close to safety he could almost taste it.

The train was less than two hundred meters from the station when the peaceful atmosphere was shattered by a deafening explosion. Von Reichter and Krumens instinctively shielded themselves as the shock wave slammed into them. They turned back to see the train cars colliding into each other as a fireball rose from what was left of the engine. Debris began pelting the station as it fell back to earth.

The two men took off running towards the wreckage as panic erupted behind them. They could feel the heat of the fire as they approached. It must have been sabotage; an incendiary bomb planted on the tracks or maybe the train itself, intended to kill wanted men like them as they escaped Europe through neutral Switzerland.

The fire was beginning to spread along the crushed and overturned cars. If they were going to get Maria out, they didn’t have much time. Von Reichter knew which car to look in, but it was badly crushed at the front, while the back twisted off the track and almost folded over toward the ground. He just hoped that was the half where she had been sitting.

Krumens helped the doctor into one of the back windows, glass blown out by the explosion. He looked around frantically. It was dark and everything was broken and covered in debris. How would he even start to find her? The fire was getting closer. He started shouting her name and listening in vain for an answer.

After what seemed like an eternity, he thought he heard something and listened, holding his breath. There it was again, a little louder.

_“Max? Where are you?”_

“It’s her!” von Reichter yelled back to Krumens. “Help me get her out of here!”

He started digging through the rubble and yelled again as he saw part of a familiar dress. Krumens picked his way through and very soon they had uncovered enough of Maria to start pulling her free. They had gotten her out just past her hips when she suddenly started screaming in pain.

“I think her legs are broken, Herr Doktor,” exclaimed Krumens.

“Just keep going!” came the frustrated reply. “We can worry about that after she’s safe!” The man gritted his teeth and continued working to free Maria’s legs as she kept screaming. They were definitely broken, possibly in multiple places.

The men brought her down and out of the car as carefully as they could, and von Reichter carried her out and away from the wreckage as the fire began to reach where they had been. He and Krumens kneeled down in the wet grass, snow melted from the heat and initial blast.

Maria was filthy, soaked with sweat and bleeding from numerous wounds. She had stopped screaming and passed out from pain before they had escaped the train car. Her breathing sounded labored and erratic.

“Liebchen, wake up. I need you to wake up now.”

She wasn’t responding. Her hearing must have been damaged from the sound of the explosion. She had probably just barely heard him shouting. He tried slapping the side of her face. Maria’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him, disoriented. She opened her mouth to speak but let out a horrible choking noise instead, coughing up a mixture of blood and foam.

“Don’t try to speak, Liebchen, just hold on. Help is coming,” the doctor promised, looking back anxiously toward the station. He could see firefighters and what looked to be Swiss army personnel approaching. What they needed were medical supplies and a stretcher. He wanted to move her around as little as possible.

Maria muttered something that he didn’t quite catch. He looked back down at the blood on her face. It was coming out of her nose and mouth now. She said it again.

“Save Josef…”

“Of course we’ll save him. We’re going to save you and the baby, Liebchen, you’re going to be alright.” He held her closer and stroked her wet hair. “My angel…”

“No,” she said, with a force that startled him. She was slowly shaking her head. “Not me. Save Josef. Give him my life.”

“Liebchen, I can’t do that, it doesn’t…”

“ _Give him my life,_ ” she begged, grabbing hold of his coat. She took a few more panicked breaths and then, as von Reichter watched in horror, the light slowly left her eyes and her grip on his coat released. She was gone.

“No,” he breathed. “No, Maria…this isn’t…”

The baby. She was dead, but the baby might still be saved, if he could get him out in time. He put his hand on Maria’s stomach, feeling for movement. Nothing. The child that was normally so active was utterly still. Von Reichter looked at the volume of blood on Maria’s thighs and soaking the skirt of her tattered dress and felt his heart finally break.

“ _Oh God, NO!_ ”

When the firefighters and army men reached the scene, they found von Reichter holding the ruined body of his wife tightly and crying hysterically. Krumens got to his feet and tried to compose himself before telling them it was too late. They continued onto the wreck to put out the fire and search for survivors. Someone would eventually have to go back and take down information on the deceased woman. But by the time the rescue party had gotten control of the bigger situation, the doctor and his assistant were long gone.

The mortician found himself, as he had on a few other occasions, acting as the town’s coroner. The sight of dead bodies was part of his everyday world and didn’t much phase him. Death visited everyone, one way or another. But he admitted to his wife that every so often, he came across a situation that still managed to get under his skin. This was one of them.

The mortician was on the older side of middle-aged and pudgy, with an appearance that reminded most people of a kindly fairy-tale elf. His personality bore this positive impression out, as he believed strongly in giving everyone who passed through the doors of the funeral home the same level of dignity he would give a friend or loved one. He couldn’t say he was particularly fond of Germans, but he had maintained the same integrity as always when dealing with the victims of the bombing.

It was a small town, and the incident was all anyone had been talking about, including the police. The driver and others in the engine car had died instantly, of course. There hadn’t been many passengers on the train that morning, and those who had died had generally been in the first few cars which were the most damaged. Still, there were enough victims that the mortician and his assistants had been working overtime, and even taking on extra volunteers just to keep up. Most of the victims were men, and perhaps this was why the young woman particularly stood out to him, the one that was bothering him so much.

She had been pulled from the wreckage by two men, one of which was presumed to be her husband, although this couldn’t be confirmed as he had long since disappeared. Like the other deceased passengers, her organs had been utterly destroyed by the explosion, as were those of the child she had been carrying, a full-term baby boy. Whoever had chosen the name had guessed the sex correctly.

The name. That was something that stood out to him. The fact that her husband – for it must have been him – had bothered to leave the names while simultaneously worrying too much about his own safety to stay in the area, leaving his young wife’s body abandoned in an alpine meadow. He cared for her, but in the end, he clearly cared more for himself. The mortician had found a train ticket in her coat pocket on which a few pieces of information had been hastily scrawled in a man’s handwriting:

Maria von Reichter 12-04-20

Josef Maximilien

Charlottenburg, Berlin

Konrad and Luise Schweitzer

The mortician felt pity for her. He didn’t know what crimes the man might be wanted for, but he suspected the only crime his wife had committed was marrying him.

There would be no funeral, so having performed the autopsy, the mortician simply stitched up the torso without taking any steps to preserve the body. He washed away the blood and dirt before taking photos of her face for later identification. Like most of the other victims, he expected it could be quite a while before the woman’s family could be contacted and her remains taken home to Germany; for now, she and her son would be buried in the local cemetery. The funeral home would have enough funds for a small stone marker bearing their names.

The mortician found a clean dress for the woman to wear and laid her in a simple coffin with her hands together on her chest, as he always did. Before attaching the lid, he put in one of her hands the only other item he had found in her pocket – an old coin from the Weimar era, its edge bent on one side. It must have been a good luck charm. Sadly, it hadn’t been quite powerful enough.

Later, he stood for moment after the grave had been filled in, feeling a bit sorry that he was the only one there. He vowed that he would continue trying to find her parents and send her home one day. (In this he would eventually be successful, but it would not be until 1947 that she would be disinterred and finally returned to Berlin.)

 _Whoever you were in life, young lady,_ the mortician thought, _I hope you and your son are at peace now._


	15. Chapter 15

**On A Ship, Headed West**

Janina shivered and held her coat around her more tightly. Even inside the crowded ship, she was always cold. She expected she would continue to feel this way until she could return to a healthy weight. It was coming back slowly, but she had been starving for a very long time.

How she had managed to survive, the woman was still not quite sure. It could have been her ability to always make herself useful. It could have been that she had started off in relatively good health. Most likely of all, she thought, it was plain old luck. There had been too many others whom she had never expected to outlive and felt had deserved to survive much more than she.

Janina had been one of the last survivors remaining in the Lodz ghetto. In August of 1944, they had all finally been deported to Auschwitz. For most of them, it was the end of the line. She had still been strong enough to make it through selection and existed – she couldn’t really say “lived” – there for about 5 hellish months, until the camp was evacuated, and the forced march began. Still she managed to survive and was put on an open freight train and sent, through the freezing weather, to yet another death camp – Buchenwald.

The day the Americans liberated the camp had felt almost unreal. Janina had felt a mixture of relief and bewilderment – what would happen now? Where would they go from here? A series of refugee camps, as it turned out. She had simply been moved from one camp of outcasts to another, and then another. At least now, however, she wasn’t at risk of being murdered at any minute.

After an interminable amount of waiting and with the help of the American army, she was able to make contact with her cousin in New York, who agreed to take her in when she arrived as a refugee. She was finished with Europe. It was time to move on.

Now she was in a ship full of fellow survivors, crossing the Atlantic. Despite the hell they had been through, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead, Janina knew that they could all be considered the lucky ones. After all, they were the ones who had somewhere to go.

She sat shivering and idly listened in to the conversation of a group of people nearby.

“Well, I won’t. There’s no one left to miss, anyway.”

“And the only ones I’d miss are on this ship.” There were murmurs of agreement.

“There’s only one person I’d like to say goodbye to, but I don’t know where she is,” said a blonde-haired woman.

“In that resistance of yours? Do you think she survived?”

“I hope so. Maybe. She’s German, so if she didn’t get caught…”

“A German? My God, they don’t deserve your sympathy!”

“She’s not like that!” the woman said emphatically. “She never believed in those terrible things, I swear! If it weren’t for her, we never would have been able to get as many people out of the country as we did.”

“How’s that?” asked someone skeptically. Janina’s interest was piqued. She wanted to know, too.

“She was rich. Well, her parents were, anyway. She contacted us when she was just a teenager. Said she wanted to do whatever she could and started giving us all this money.” The woman spoke with great affection. “She was sweet, but she always seemed so lonely. Her closest friend was her Jewish housekeeper, and when she got deported to Poland…”

“Wait a minute!” The group turned to look at Janina as she suddenly jumped to her feet, eyes wide. She looked at the blonde woman with hope. “This girl…did she live in Berlin? What did she look like?”

“She lived in Charlottenburg,” replied the startled woman. “And she was beautiful. A redhead with green eyes.”

Janina felt tears threatening to fall. She couldn’t believe it. Taking a seat next to the group, she continued. “Tell me…what was her name?”

“We never told each other our real names. She called herself Paulinchen.”

Janina thought for a moment. “Did she ever mention a friend who moved away? Who left her his lucky coin?”

“His…” the other woman went silent and stared at Janina in shock as she realized what was going on. “It’s you! _You’re Janina!_ ” she cried. The two women stood and embraced each other fiercely. “Thank God you’re alive! Paulinchen was terrified for you!”

“Maria,” said Janina, wiping at her eyes and smiling. “Her real name is Maria.” _No wonder she tried so hard to get me to escape,_ she thought. _She really could have gotten me out._ “She tried to write to me and send me things when I was in Lodz, but after a while they wouldn’t let any mail in or out. The last I heard from her, she had to move with her husband to Poland and…” Janina stopped smiling. “And she lost her baby.”

“That’s the last we heard too. I couldn’t believe it. Poor Paulinchen – poor Maria.” The woman paused. “What was her full name, anyway?”

“Maria Schweitzer. Well, not anymore. Her married name is von Reichter.”

“Did you say von Reichter?” a man exclaimed, incredulously. “As in, Dr. von Reichter? My God, don’t even say that bastard’s name to me!”

The two women looked at him in shock. “Why?” asked Janina, fear creeping into her voice. “Who is he? What did he do?”

“You don’t even want to know!” said someone else. “That man is a monster! I only hope the Allies have caught him!”

“How could this woman you’re talking about be so wonderful if she was married to him?” demanded the first man.

“She didn’t know! She couldn’t have, I swear she couldn’t, or she never would have married him!” Janina looked to the other woman, frantically. “She’s not like that!”

“I know she’s not, dear, I know. I believe you,” the woman consoled her. “He must have kept it all hidden from her. At least until it was too late. But she must have found out sooner or later…and then what?”

_What happened to you, laleczka?_ wondered Janina, sadly. _And where are you now?_

**On A Ship, Headed South**

The group of crew members talked and laughed among themselves as they made their way to the mess hall. The sun had just begun to set, and the starboard deck was glowing in the golden light.

Squinting in the brightness, one of them caught sight of the two passengers the captain had taken on at Genoa and pointed them out. His friends, as it was dinnertime and the end of their shift, loudly greeted the men as they passed by. The younger, blond one was amiable enough and waved, but the older one with black hair eyed them with silent contempt.

“Honestly Krumens,” von Reichter remarked without making eye contact. “There’s no use in being familiar with them if you can’t even speak the same language.”

“But Herr Doktor, since we’re stuck on this boat, maybe they can teach us…”

“The Spanish lessons can wait. We have a great deal of time.” He turned and put his hands on the railing, light catching the monocle he had taken to wearing in place of his glasses. Krumens understood that the conversation was over and presently returned to his cabin.

Von Reichter gripped the railing tightly and fought to stop the tears threatening to form in his eyes again. It kept happening unexpectedly, at all times of the day. He’d remember Maria’s smile, or her voice, or the way her hair smelled. Then there were the dreams where he’d see her spirit standing over her own dead body in the meadow – or worse, where he’d turn over in bed to see her corpse reaching out to embrace him and he’d wake up screaming. Maria would not leave his mind and he couldn’t stand how helpless he felt against the pain. The world had been so cruel to him. First, it had taken his research facility and interrupted his career. Then, it had taken his safety and cast him out of Europe. Finally, it had taken the lives of his wife and son.

_One day, I’ll change all that,_ he vowed. _One day, the world will answer to me._


End file.
